The Seven Deadly Sins trapped in the Rock Of the Ages, mid 1940's Shazam!
Seven Deadly Sins,
Seven ways to win,
Seven holy paths to Hell And your trip begins.
Seven downward slopes,
Seven bloodied hopes,
Seven are your burning fires Seven your desires —Iron Maiden.
The Operative: Do you know what your sin is, captain?
Mal: Aw hell, I'm a fan of all seven.
-
Serenity
Most people have an idea of the Seven Deadly sins, but probably can't name all of them, but if they have to guess, they'd say Bashful, Doc, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Sneezy, and Sleepy. Oh wait, that's the
Seven dwarfs. Well, at least
forgetful isn't one of the
Seven Deadly Sins or we'd probably all be in trouble!
The Seven Deadly Sins are the
seven basic concepts that will lead your soul to ruin, curdle your milk, and cause the grass beneath your feet to die. They're the basic seven personality traits which lead people to wrongdoing, and the various ways to sin are just combinations and permutations of these seven ideas. Obviously, these are the basic "rules of behavior" for any self-respecting
Card Carrying Villain.
In alphabetical order, here are the big seven, along with a couple examples of tropes embodying each (keep in mind that there are plenty of tropes that reference them, but including them all would make this entry nigh-unreadable):
Avarice - Often simply referred to as greed, but avarice includes spending money pointlessly as well as hoarding it. An oft-misquoted passage in
The Bible says that "the love of money is the root of many kinds of evil." This one is popular amongst
Rich Bitches,
Corrupt Corporate Executives, and anyone who would say
Screw The Rules I Have Money. When treated as a vital part of the economy rather than a sin, it's called "the profit motive".
Envy - This is jealousy, but purely for other people's stuff. Hey, sometimes others get the cool stuff first. Doesn't stop you from wanting it. Those that act on this tend to be thieves of any stripe, be it a
Gentleman Thief, a
Classy Cat Burglar, a highwayman, or a plagiarist.
Gluttony - Have you ever wanted to just sit around and eat all day? That's gluttony in a nutshell. It also includes wasting food. This is one of the sins more likely to appear in heroic characters - after all,
Big Eaters are funny, and their obvious extension
Extreme Omnivore is even funnier. Also, this might explain why so many tropes have food in their names while having nothing to do with food. The most villainous practitioners of this sin typically say
Im A Humanitarian. (Note: in pop culture, gluttony is almost always associated with overeating, but theologically it applies to overconsumption of anything.)
Lust - This editor's personal favorite sin, it's the desire to
know someone biblically, but traditionally included all other sins of physical desire or luxury (such as drug addiction), not just sex. How evil this is depends often on the author's view of sex. Authors with a much more positive view of the matter will show this trope via
Lovable Sex Maniacs and occasional bouts of
Deus Sex Machina, and maybe a
Parental Bonus if the work is theoretically for kids. Authors more negative on the concept will say
No Sex Allowed,
Evil Is Sexy (possibly reversed to "Sexy is Evil"), or
Death By Sex.
Pride - Often said to be the big one, as "pride
cometh before a fall." Traditionally the most vile of the Seven Deadly Sins, it was the one that corrupted
Satan as it involves
placing yourself above God (or whatever deity you're invoking) and all others. In fact, pretty much every villain, in part, is motivated by pride - the idea is, they'd make things work better than what's going on now. So, they feel it's only right they should
Take Over The World. The ones more blatant about it are the
Evil Overlord, the
Nietzsche Wannabe, and the
Corrupt Hick. By definition, it is the one Sin that prevents the sinner from repentance, as they are too proud to admit that they were wrong. Termed "self respect" when treated as a virtue.
Sloth - The reason this entry didn't become into existence earlier despite the fact that everyone liked the idea, sloth is the lack of desire to actually do some work. This one isn't possessed by villains often, but if heroes possess too much of it the
Big Bad will find it much easier to succeed. Sometimes this results in a
Refusal Of The Call, and more than one creator who
Did Not Do The Research has been accused of this. While obviously not main characters,
Apathetic Citizens are clearly slothful. The
Dumb Blonde and the
Brainless Beauty may not be so much lacking in intelligence as too slothful to cultivate it. Sloth may result in
Silly Rabbit Idealism Is For Kids; idealism is too much work. Frequently results from the
Morale Event Horizon.
Wrath - Darth Vader tried to lure his son to
The Dark Side by using his anger. He ought to know that lust was a much better temptation.
Star Wars complaints aside, this is rage taken up a few dozen notches, combined with blood-thirstiness and a general appreciation of too much violence. It can be easily seen in a
Blood Knight, during an
Unstoppable Rage, and in general anyone with a
Berserk Button.
Remember them with the handy acronym WASPLEG!
There are also seven holy virtues, but those don't get as much play on their own, even as a contrast to the deadly sins. In order of their opposites above, they are charity, kindness, temperance, chastity, humility, diligence, and forgiveness.
There is another traditional list of Seven Virtues which do not precisely correspond to the Seven Deadly Sins: The Four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Fortitude (or Courage); and the Three Theological Virtues: Faith, Hope and Charity. The first four were recognized by Classical pagans, the rest added by Christians.
Examples:
- Dante's Purgatorio had each level of Purgatory represent each one of the deadly sins, making this Older Than Print.
- The movie Se7en centered around a serial killer committing his murders based on these sins.
- In Fullmetal Alchemist, the homunculi are named after the sins. Many of them have powers appropriate to their name: Envy is a shape shifter, Gluttony can consume anything, and Lust is beautiful but deadly. This is made more obvious in the manga where Sloth is a giant that frequently falls asleep, Pride looks like Father's original form, and Wrath constantly mentions how angry he is.
- And Greed actually betrays Father and runs away to lead his own life because, as he explicitly tells Father, following him wouldn't satisfy his consuming greed.
- In the anime, Pride is King Bradley, who's Wrath in the manga but who does act very arrogant. Wrath is a character original to the anime and is indeed one angry little guy. And Sloth doesn't seem particularly lazy, but her 'nature' as a kind of slimy water-like thing that creeps on the ground and walls possibly fits... plus her desire to take the easy way out by killing Ed and Al rather than come to terms with what she is.
- In the 1967 Deal With The Devil film Bedazzled, the protagonist meets incarnations of the seven deadly sins.
- In the videogame Overlord, the fallen heroes who serve as the bosses are each themed for a sin.
- Melvin Underbelly (Gluttony): A small halfling who discovered he could have all the food he wanted and forced nearby villagers into slave labour, becoming morbidly obese from all the food.
- Oberon Greenhaze (Sloth): An elf who's fallen into a deep sleep... which lead to his fellow elves being all but slaughtered by the invading dwarves, and Oberon's Oberon's nightmares becoming real, in case you were wondering what was so bad about this.
- Sir William the Black (Lust): Abandoned his fiancee after being seduced by a succubus.
- Goldo Golderson (Greed): Kidnapped the surviving elves and forced them to mine gold for him.
- Jewel, the Thieving Hero (Envy): Kleptomanic thief, constantly steals things other people want.
- Kahn the Warrior (Wrath): He gets really angry when Jewel is defeated....
- The Wizard (Pride): Possessed by the protagonist's predecessor. He was responsible for the downfall of the other heroes and attempts to usurp (well, reclaim) the player's position as overlord.
- In the New World Of Darkness, all characters have a Vice, selected from one of the seven deadly sins. By fulfilling their Vice, the character can gain a point of Willpower (a vital resource) due to gratifying their ego. (A character with Greed as a Vice, for example, can fulfill it by screwing someone over for a quick buck.) However, acts that fulfill Vices are usually going to damage the Karma Meter, so the player has to weigh the cost against the gain. In contrast, characters also have Virtues (such as Charity or Faith), which take much more work to fulfill, but fully restore Willpower when pulled off.
- Devil May Cry 3 uses the seven deadly sins to represent both the standard scythe-bearing enemies and various bosses. In a semi-subversion, Pride is the weakest of the normal enemies.
- In the DC Comics Universe, the Seven Deadly Sins, or rather their Anthropomorphic Personifications, are imprisoned inside the Rock of the Ages by the wizard Shazam (Same guy who empowered Capatain Marvel of I Am Not Shazam fame), though their influence is still passively felt throughout creation.
- Shadow Hearts: From the New World features a dungeon called "Purgatory" where the monsters and bosses are all themed on the seven deadly sins. The most powerful is envy.
- The Four Masks from the first Shadow Hearts are, according to their monster information, based on four of the seven deadly sins. And more obviously, on the four minor arcana of tarot, and the four Western Elements. Because just one numerical theme isn't enough!
- 1927's Metropolis includes a dream sequence featuring embodiments of the Seven Deadly Sins and Death. Death aside, you'd be hard pressed to recognize them, but they are listed in the credits, apparently playing themselves.
- The videoclip for the Pet Shop Boys song It's a Sin has a bunch of actors personifying the Seven Deadly Sins. Particularly noticeable is Geena Davis playing Pride as a Rich Bitch in black with a huge peacock fan.
- In the Worlds of Power book based on Castlevania II, Simon Belmont instructs his companion to hit him any time he acts out any of the seven deadly sins, as Dracula can claim his soul if he is not virtuous enough.
- The Seven Deadly Sins are skills one can buy and learn from
Hell Hey Deze in the special "Bad Moon" difficulty of Kingdom Of Loathing. Each one gives an advantage and disadvantage, but you can strategically cancel the disadvantages out with each other.
- Top Chef and Americas Next Top Model have each had challenges associated with the seven deadly sins, where each contestant (at the stage where there were seven remaining) was assigned a sin to represent through cooking or modelling, respectively. (This editor is disappointed that in neither case did the person assigned Sloth have the chutzpah to say "I'm representing Sloth by not doing anything at all.")
- The Sins now star in their own webcomic http://www.sincomics.com/
- Jack beats that record. The title character is Wrath, as well as The Grim Reaper.
- Digimon has the Seven Demon Lords, each one representing a sin. Digimon Savers used the general sins as part of the reason for the Monsters of the Week showing up for the first 12 episodes, and the Digimon representing Sloth was used for the Magnificent Bastard to control.
- Garth Nix's seven-part Keys To The Kingdom series features a different villain in each one, named after a different day. Since the breaking of the Will, each of these Trustees has also been afflicted by a particular Deadly Sin.
- Monday is Sloth - he allows his dominion to fall apart because he can't be bothered to do anything about it.
- Tuesday is Avarice - He is desperate for Nothing, the raw material of everything, and his mining operations almost makes his Realm collapse into the Void.
- Wednesday is Gluttony - she is cursed to eat constantly and has swollen to become a giant whale.
- Thursday is Wrath - He can't control his anger.
- Friday is Lust - She is addicted to mortal experiences and uses her magic to steal them.
- Saturday is Envy - She is resentful that Sunday rules the House, when she is the elder of the two.
- Sunday is Pride. Thus far, he has refused to get involved in the battle for the House, believing there can only one result, and instead delights in his demesne, the Incomparable Gardens, and is fond of showing Saturday brief glimpses of it. He also controls the most powerful of the Seven Keys.
- Also, the Keys themselves seem to be reflective of the sins. Sloth, a waste of time, is paired with a sword resembling a clock hand. Greed, a pair of gloves, wrath a sword, gluttony a trident (and in some descriptions, very obviously portrayed as a big fork), lust a mirror, and envy a quill. The last 2 I have trouble figuring out. Or maybe I'm just reading too much into this.
- This series is also an example of the Seven Heavenly Virtues, exemplified by the seven pieces of the Will. Fortitude, Prudence, Faith, Justice, Temperance, and Charity have been seen so far, with the first five having merged together. These characters are highly unbalanced and are supposed to become more reasonable as they merge into one entity. This doesn't seem to be working.
- An episode of Supernatural had the protagonists fighting seven demons who were the deadly sins personified.
- The little-known Lucas Arts world-building (or, technically, worlds-building) game Afterlife had this as one of its primary game mechanics. As the Demiurge charged with building both Heaven and Hell, you had to construct zones for each of the seven vices or their corresponding virtues (most with PunnyNames, and entering Ironic Hell).
- The shonen manga series Katekyo Hitman Reborn has the seven sins represented by the seven top members of an elite assassination squad, the Varia. The seven protagonists set to battle against them in a fight for the right to inherit a powerful mafia family embody the seven holy virtues (but not as obviously as the antagonists).
- An incomplete example-given that there's four, not seven-is that many people believe the four bad children from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to be representatives of sin; Augustus Gloop is gluttony, Veruca Salt is greed, Mike Teavee is wrath and Violet Beauregard is pride.
- Terry Pratchett's Discworld. In the country of Lancre, one family went and named their daughters after the virtues, Faith, Hope, Charity, Prudence so forth. And out of a misinformed sense of continuity, named their sons along the lines of Beastiality, Brutality (among others). Subverted, because each of the daughters came to embody the sin opposite of her virtuous name. Meanwhile, despite everything else, Brutality was a kind and calm man, while his brother Beastiality was kind to animals (not that way, sicko)
- Also, in Going Postal, it turns out that there are actually eight virtues: Patience, Chastity, Silence, Charity, Hope, Tubso, Bissonomy and Fortitude.
- An Eight Bit Theater arc shows the Light Warriors in the "Castle of Ordeals", wherein each warrior has to face a personification of their own personal sin. Played straight and subverted seemingly simultaneously:
- Theif, whose sin is Avarice, does not actually face his ordeal, as Black Mage stumbles into the room and kills it for him.
- Fighter, whose sin is Sloth (for not seeking to hone his swordsmanship, and instead relying upon what he already knows). The personification then explains that he must learn to use his brains instead of his brawn, prompting Fighter to slay him on the spot because his "brain said this was faster."
- Red Mage's sin is Pride, because he severely lacks hubris, demonstrated by his Munchkin trait as he changes his character sheet to say "Humble +2000". Eventually realizes that he cannot argue his way out of the ordeal, and submits. He passes the ordeal. He then proceeds to gloat about his mind working on levels he isn't consciously aware of.
- And finally, Black Mage is presented with a literal representation of his own atrocities and sins: a Mirror Match of himself. Even this representation is missing some of Black Mage's more recent atrocities. Being faced with the manifestation of his evil, Black Mage believes that there is only one way to exorcise his ordeal, and turns his knife on himself. The ordeal turns his back on the corpse, only to find out, via a knife through his head, that Black Mage was Not Quite Dead. He then absorbed all of the evil from his Mirror Match into his own body, thus avoiding all possibility of redemption. Then he humorously (and literally) invokes a Rape The Dog moment on the corpse of his Mirror Match. Thief then threatens to blackmail him with pictures of said atrocity. Hilarity Ensues.
- Alan Moore's run on Supreme included the seven-headed demon lord Sin. Each head represented a different Deadly Sin, and their sometimes conflicting motivations were his greatest weakness.
- Generally in Star Wars, Sith Lords tend to embody one of those sins. Emperor Palpatine = Greed, Vader and Maul and Scion = Wrath, Kreia = Sloth, Nihilus = Gluttony, Malek = Envy, Revan = Pride.
- Arguably, the doomed characters in Sweeney Todd represent the seven deadly sins: Todd is Wrath, Mrs. Lovett Avarice, Judge Turpin Lust, Pirelli Pride, the Beadle Envy, and the citizenry of London generally Gluttony.
- Sloth could be the Begger Woman Sweeny's wife who hasn't really bettered herself since the "incident" (but really, can you blame her?) or Toby, in an ironic way: he's very industrious (mild gin addiction aside) until the very end.
- In the Flogging Molly song "Seven Deadly Sins", the sins are personified as pirates tempting people to sail away with them and be free.
- Umineko No Naku Koro Ni features the Stakes of Purgatory, a group of seven sisters with red eyes who serve the Golden Witch, Beatrice. They turn into stakes to kill those guilty of their respective sin.
