After-Thoughts: The Problem with Escanor in The Seven Deadly Sins

Recently I caught up on the manga The Seven Deadly Sins after the second season of the anime refused to create a dub for some reason and the Japanese version was going too slow in terms of going through everything I wanted to see. Prior to reading the manga I was well aware of the Lion's Sin of Pride Escanor and his status as a very popular character in the manga, to the point that some people even call him the best. Here, I'd like to debunk that notion by highlighting his problems as a character.

In terms of The Seven Deadly Sins, there are certainly characters that I like less than Escanor and there are characters that I dislike more. However, among just the Sins, Escanor is probably my least favorite. Here I'm going to highlight all of the problems I have with him as a character.

Problem Number 1 is that he only has one real character trait. His primary trait is his Pride, or Arrogance, and though that was acceptable when he was first introduced it becomes less acceptable as time goes by. To understand why this is a problem, however, we have to understand the sins of the other characters and why the sins worked in their cases while it absolutely doesn't for Escanor.

The Seven Deadly Sins, in order of introduction are Wrath, Envy, Greed, Sloth, Lust, Gluttony, and Pride. Meliodas, the Sin of Wrath, was assigned the sin of wrath for his anger and overwhelming power that resulted in the destruction of Danafall. When he was first introduced, he was this really calm, relaxed, lighthearted, and often times sexual harasser to Elizabeth which contradicted the idea that he could've been branded the Sin of Wrath. Even Elizabeth comments on how that had to be a mistake. Then, during the Vysal Festival Tournament, specifically after Meliodas broke out of the Goddess Amber, he revealed that he has a state where he's no longer in control of his actions alongside just being incredibly powerful.

From this point forward, we start to ask questions as we come to wonder what exactly we don't already know about this character. It's revealed a short time after this that Meliodas destroyed Danafall as a reaction to the death of his former lover Liz, whose name is also Elizabeth and who shares a great similarity in terms of appearance. This sets up a small amount of intrigue on why Meliodas might be interested in Elizabeth since, if you're familiar with narrative tropes, having two characters look similar generally means they have some kind of connection.

This all ties into the eventual reveal of Meliodas and Elizabeth's journey to break their curses and stay together in the after life forever.

Now let's move on to Diane. Diane, the Sin of Envy, kind of got shafted in the first season for being one of the first four introduced who had basically nothing about her past or her troubles revealed during this season. That said, these things are revealed eventually, and in the manga, it's revealed that Diane's sin is actually a misnomer.

Basically, she was tried for the death of a Holy Knight who she didn't even kill, and was assigned the sin of envy for poisoning Matrona. Diane was born into the Giant Race, which is a race of warriors, apparently. In the Giant Clan, you live for battle, you die in battle, and your honor comes from your strength.

Diane, however, didn't enjoy fighting in spite of the fact that she was really good at it. Her refusal to fight and to put aside her anger at Matrona for getting a friend killed caused Matrona's "death" and Diane's eventual recruitment into the Seven Deadly Sins.

At heart, Diane isn't really that envious of a character, and she actually develops eventually into a stronger, more mature, but still fairly maternal and feminine character who can fight but who helps resolve emotions, particularly with Gowther later on.

Ban is assigned the sin of greed for hunting immortality and getting the fairy king's forest destroyed, and while that is factually correct, it ignores the fact that Ban initially relented on the fountain of youth to protect the forest and Elaine and he only drank the fountain against his will so that he could destroy the red demon that was destroying it. His greed, which is later attached to his desire to revive Elaine, is out of desire to be with her, yes, but it's also out of his immense guilt for causing her death. This guilt eventually causes him to tear between his love for Elaine and respect for Meliodas.

King is assigned the sin of sloth for being too late to stop any atrocity he has the responsibility to deal with. He eventually deals with Helbram but his amnesia ended up delaying him and it's a running theme with King that he's unable to protect anything that he cares about. He's the king of the fairy king forest with power exceeded only by Gloxinia among Fairy kind, as far as I know anyway, and yet he's almost completely unable to save anything. This lends a sort of small parallel with both Meliodas, whose entire struggle in the manga is about his endless attempts and failures to save Elizabeth, and Gloxinia, whose inability to stop the dismemberment and, as far as he knew, death of his sister was what resulted in him becoming the Repose of the Ten Commandments to begin with.

After that comes Gowther, who is assigned the sin of lust for, allegedly, forcing himself on the princess of britannia, Bartra's younger sister, and brutally murdering her. In reality that's not the case, she and him both stripped for a moment of intimacy on her deathbed and her heart stopped beating due to a heart-disorder. He thinks the reason she died is because her heart was defective and tries to save her by giving her his own, which resulted in him maiming her body so he could put the heart in like a sort of flash drive.

Regardless, Gowther ends up being unable to deal with this fact and wipes his memories of the event so that he no longer feels the pain of loss. This is what, ironically, leads to him wanting a heart and emotions as the event that resulted in that desire stems from his desire to stop feeling entirely. It isn't until Gowther is forced to deal with his returning memories by Diane and King that he's fully able to process them and become a fairly adjusted individual.

Finally, we have Merlin, who admittedly hasn't had a huge amount revealed about her past or her motivations but what's currently there is still more significant than Escanor has. We know that she was born 3000 years prior to the beginning of the series, as she was around during the Holy War that resulted in Elizabeth and Meliodas' curses and Gloxinia and Drole becoming members of the Commandments.

She was born with the power of Infinity, which allows any spell she casts to have an infinite duration so long as she has enough energy to cast it and doesn't choose to disable it. This power was deemed so effective that both the Demon King and the Supreme Deity believed that she could turn the tide of the war in favor of whoever she sides with. So she made a deal to receive blessings from both and she would side with whoever's blessings were better.

The Demon King gave her immunity to Goddess Clan mind control and also taught her the secrets of all demon magic. The Supreme Deity gave her resistance to the effects of the Ten Commandments. However, instead of choosing one side or another she instead makes off with all of the blessings, making herself an enemy of both sides.

Currently, she's the Boar Sin of Gluttony, and currently we don't know why. However, it is believed that her insatiable desire for knowledge may have something to do with it. We also know that she is incredibly loyal to Arthur Pendragon of Camelot, to the point that she sheds a tear upon his "death" (I have a hard time accepting that he's dead since characters that are shown to be dead are later revealed to have not died). Also earlier in the series she describes Arthur as her one hope in the world, suggesting that her bond with him goes deeper than we initially see.

Merlin isn't exceptionally well known at the moment, however, part of that is that she has the rule of mystery surrounding her character, something that Escanor doesn't really have.

Currently, we do not know why Escanor is assigned the Sin of Pride, we don't see any deeper character traits apart from the defining traits of his two primary modes, and the reveal of his power Sunshine being one of the four graces of the Goddess Clan inherited from Mael is interesting but not enough to hold up a character all by itself. If anything, the reveal of Mael and Escanor's mysterious connection builds up the former far more than the latter, since Mael was most likely the one who resulted in the grace going to Escanor.

My second reason for Escanor being my least favorite is a lack of narrative parallels and connections. This one may sound petty but I promise I'm going somewhere with this.

Of the known Seven Deadly Sins, 5 of them have some connection to the 10 Commandments, the ones who don't are Escanor and Ban.

Meliodas is the former captain of the 10 Commandments, eldest son of the Demon King and the elder brother of both Estarossa and Zeldris. This doesn't have too much significance at the beginning of the arc. However, upon Meliodas defecting and attempting to hunt down the commandments so that he can use their power to break Elizabeth's curse, there's a bit of inter-family politics going on here.

Firstly, although not explicitly stated in the main manga, there is a side story detailing Zeldris' relationship with Gelda which is hinted at by Meliodas to be the reason Zeldris wishes to become the Demon King. Although not explicit, this does set up a connection between Meliodas and Elizabeth's struggle and Zeldris and Gelda's, and serving as a foil that reveals how Meliodas and Elizabeth may have carried forth had events played out differently.

Estarossa currently doesn't have any real information surrounding him or his backstory. The only real information we have about his internal character comes from Cusack, who states that Estarossa always appears as though he's hiding something.

Diane is somewhat less directly connected to Drole, however, there are still some connections. Firstly, Diane grew up with just as much potential to be the leader of the Giants as Drole did. However, the way their lives play out, Drole ends up being restricted by his Clan's rules and desires where Diane acts outside of them.

The reason for this is summed up by Drole himself. "Giants know combat better than any other clan. Putting it a different way, though, they know nothing of anything else." Here in this line, we see that Drole dedicated so much of his life to becoming the perfection of the Giant Clan's customs but that he was never anything more than that. And that he ultimately played a part in the stagnation of the Giant Clan. Because of this, along with Diane's abandonment of the Clan's customs, that should she become the ruler of the clan, she could correct the mistakes that he made by becoming a god to the Giants. This is further cemented after the training session with her that he became a Commandment in the face of Zeldris' power because the only options he saw were to fight and die or to surrender and get stronger. Diane ends up subverting this by running away from an opponent she knew she couldn't deal with, which is something a human may do but that is unthinkable to any other giant.

Next is King, who is the current fairy king two generations after Gloxinia, who became one of the ten commandments after failing to save his sister. This is actually an interesting parallel, far more so than Diane's with Drole. King's sister Elaine ends up dying due to the actions of Ban and King resented Ban for that. However, Ban was the one that Elaine loved most and who she would suffer the same fate for an infinite number of times if it meant she could rescue him. King eventually realizes that even though he finds Ban to be scum among the humans, Elaine doesn't see it that way and ultimately Elaine's happiness is far more important than his own revenge.

This comes to a head during the training in the past where King comes across a similar event except with one major difference. Well, two actually. The first, is that Gloxinia's sister isn't actually dead, though he believes she is upon seeing it. However, the other difference, is that Gloxinia is present at the aftermath of his sister's damage and though he still lacks context, the fact is he's able to act on his uncontrollable rage immediately where King had far more time to dwell on it and come to terms with it. Of course it really didn't help that Ban is immortal where Gloxinia's victim isn't.

Gloxinia ends up killing him due to uncontrollable rage but also because it didn't occur to him that maybe Gerheade would want him to survive. King's prior experience with Ban and Elaine is what causes him to come to this realization in the same situation and decides not to kill him for her own happiness.

This decision, along with the info that his sister is still alive, is what ends up causing Gloxinia to defy the Commandments and return to the Fairies once again.

After King we have Gowther. Gowther is a pseudo-immortal puppet. However, Gowther the puppet was created by Gowther, the former Commandment of Selflessness. Gowther the commandment is currently dead but left the puppet alive so that he could experience his own life and freedom, something that he himself was never able. It's not much but this and his relationship with Bartra's sister ends up resulting in the arc that he has.

Finally, Merlin. Merlin is connected to the commandments for reasons I've already stated, and though this doesn't lead into characterizing her better for the moment, it does help to cement her as one of the major sins.

Once again, Escanor doesn't have anything of the sort. Apart from resulting in Galand's defeat, Escanor is just kind of around. He does severely injure Zeldris and Estarossa to the point of giving Britannia a fighting chance against the demons. However, the only real connection I can find is that his Grace is connected to Mael, who was killed by Estarossa.

Escanor just doesn't have much going for him that makes him interesting.

My third reason is motivations. Everybody in the sins has either some goal that they're currently striving to achieve or some problem that they're currently trying to move past. Meliodas' quest for Elizabeth, Ban's desire to rescue Elaine, Diane and King's desires to protect their loved ones, Gowther's desire for a heart and after that a desire to preserve his state, and even Merlin's desire to protect and elevate Arthur are all tangible motivations for them to work with.

Escanor just kind of wants to be around Merlin and Meliodas. That's it. No deeper reasons or desires. This is incredibly underwhelming from a narrative perspective because you'd think a member of the seven deadly sins would have some aspect to him that put him in this position and motivates him to move forward. None has been revealed.

This is why I find it incredibly difficult to believe that Escanor deserves to be seen as a favorite or a well written character in the manga and anime. In reality, Escanor is probably the least deserving of that title in the Sins themselves and on the lower rungs among characters in general. For how present he's been since the battle with Galand and Melascula, his character is unforgivably weak. You can like Escanor as much as you want. Just don't expect me to take him seriously.