The Seven Deadly Sins is a manga series written and illustrated by Nakaba Suzuki, set in a fictitious in a time period superficially akin to the European Middle Ages. Likewise superficially, and frequently in ironic or contradictory ways, the series references various traditions, including Christianity and the Arthurian legend. The contradictory nature of the names given to the groups and characters is reflected in the emergence of the titular group as the protagonists and the group of "Holy Knights" as the antagonists of the series. In accordance with the medieval theme, many of The Seven Deadly Sins characters are depicted as knights, broadly construed, who are clad in stylized variations of medieval armor, many of whom perform magic. The five major clans in the series are Humans, Giants, Fairies, Goddess, and Demons, all of which possess powerful abilities and magical powers. In naming the characters, the manga offers a wide variety of further mythical, historical, geographical, and cultural allusions, e.g., King Arthur, Merlin, Gowther, Zaratras, Dreyfus, Gustaf, Frisia, Jericho, Galand,, Albions, The Vampires, and Zhivago.
Main characters
Meliodas
The series' male main protagonist and leader of the Seven Deadly Sins, who bears the sin of wrath as a Dragon symbol on his left shoulder. Despite being called the Sin of Wrath, displaying it whenever those dear to him are endangered or killed, Meliodas conceals his rage under the façade of a mellow trickster who is often seen fondling Elizabeth one way or another. When found by Elizabeth at the start of the series, who seeks his help in reuniting the Deadly Sins after their disbandment ten years prior, Meliodas reveals to be doing the same thing. Despite his adolescent appearance, Meliodas is actually a Demon who is over three thousand years old. Meliodas is later revealed to be the son of the Demon King and original leader of the Ten Commandants, possessing the fragment of his father's soul embodying Love. But Meliodas turned his back on his people when he fell in love with the Goddess Elizabeth, killing two of his fellow Commandments and causing the Holy War to occur. The Demon King allowed the Supreme Deity of the Goddess race to curse Meliodas with immortality, with the Demon King cursing Elizabeth with perpetual death and reincarnation to make his son suffer every time he is reunited with her. Due to the curse's nature, Meliodas' soul ends up in Purgatory with the Demon King feasting on his emotions before reviving him, gradually reverting to his former self as a result. After Elizabeth begins regaining her memories as the goddess Elizabeth, Meliodas resolves to become the new demon king to break their curses. He disbands the Deadly Sins and enters an alliance with Zeldris after promising to use his status to release his brother's love Gelda, revealing to have absorbed the Commandment of Pacifism and intending to absorb the other commandments. Despite becoming a vessel for the Demon King before managing to force him out of his body, Meliodas freed him and Elizabeth from their curses though he would leave the living world because his power as a demon king. But the victory is short-lived as the Demon King possesses Zeldris and restores Elizabeth's curse, prompting the Sins' final battle with the Demon King. After killing his father, Meliodas sacrifices his demon king powers to completely destroy the commandments to prevent the Demon King from reviving. As Seven Deadly Sins' captain once revered by his kin as the most powerful demon, Meliodas is immensely powerful and agile. His signature ability is called, which reflects magical attacks back at the attacker with far greater power, the only drawbacks being that he can only use it as a counter and that it is ineffective against physical attacks. Meliodas can also tap into his demonic power, manifesting versatile dark energy from his body to increase his offence and defence at the cost of entering a berserk state. Meliodas initially carried a sword hilt called the Dragon Handle before it was stolen by Helbram and later revealed to be a fragment of the Coffin of Eternal Darkness, which was used to seal away the Demon clan. He later regains his Sacred Treasure, a curved short-sword that allows him to create up to four weaker clones of himself that compensate for their lack in power by using Full Counter to its full potential.
Elizabeth Liones
is the main viewpoint character of the story and primary female protagonist, originally from the Danafor kingdom before it was destroyed and she was adopted by Baltra Liones as third princess of Liones. She becomes an ally of the Seven Deadly Sins when seeking their help after the Great Holy Knights seized control of the kingdom, serving as a waitress in Meliodas' bar. Despite being frail and not a fighter, Elizabeth is very courageous and willing to protect others at the cost of her own health, like allowing Hendrickson to acquire her blood to free the Demon Race from the Coffin of Eternal Darkness. Still, being only a young teenager, she is fairly gullible and easily influenced, and always tricked by Meliodas' jokes. She doesn't seem to mind how often he caresses, molests, or harasses her sexually, however, and has even fallen in love with him due to a sense of familiarity with and nostalgia for him. Elizabeth is later revealed to be the 106th reincarnation of the Goddess Elizabeth, Meliodas' first love and daughter of the Supreme Deity of the Goddess Race. But their forbidden romance ended with her killed and cursed by the Demon King to reincarnate endlessly as a means to further punish Meliodas by forcing him to watch Elizabeth endlessly die in various ways and find her all over again. This enables Elizabeth to miraculously heal the living through her right eye's tears, later manifesting abilities that only those of the Goddess Race possess at times of great stress. Elizabeth eventually regains full memory of her previous incarnations and her full Goddess power is unleashed, activating her curse to kill her three days as the second Holy War is able to commence. This forces Meliodas to take a gambit of acquiring his father's power to break Elizabeth's curse, with Merlin briefly restoring the curse in secret as a means to force Meliodas to kill his father.
Hawk
is a talking pig and Meliodas's pet/companion, introduced as the Boar Hat's 'captain of the Order of Scraps Disposal' as he eats the disgusting table scraps. Hawk found Meliodas in a ditch sixteen years prior, and the two established a mobile bar together, having been together ever since. They often engage in harmless banter, with Hawk frequently seen scolding Meliodas for his perverted actions towards Elizabeth. Though mostly serving as comic relief by acting overly arrogant, he yet aids Elizabeth and the Sins several times, utilizing headbutts and other modest attacks on weaker enemies and transporting wounded allies. In the Kingdom Infiltration Arc, Hawk sacrifices himself to block a fatal attack of Hendrickson's aimed at Meliodas, and his death caused much anguish for Elizabeth and the Sins. But Hawk mysteriously revives from his remains as a piglet before regaining his normal size through excessive eating. Besides Meliodas, Hawk gets particularly well along with Ban and Merlin. Later, the latter equips him with a Balor Power Eye that allows him to detect the power level of anyone he sees. During his training in Istal, Hawk learns that he temporarily acquires the traits of whatever magical creature he eats, obtaining their powers until he digests them. It is later revealed that Hawk is a denizen of Purgatory and the younger brother of Wild, the latest of the creatures that the Demon King used as a means of spying on Meliodas from Purgatory.
The were the strongest and cruelest order of Holy Knights in the kingdom, formed by Meliodas and six other brutal criminals from various races who were branded symbols of beasts to symbolize the sin that motivated their crimes. Each of the members of the group had the highest Holy Knight ranking, Diamond. They were branded as traitors to Britannia, having allegedly abetted the assassination of the Great Holy Knight Zaratras. The Deadly Sins are eventually absolved of their crimes after liberating Liones from rule of the Holy Knights.
Diane
Ban
King
Gowther
Merlin
Escanor
Demon Clan
The antagonists for most of the series, Demons are a race of beings who were at odds with the Goddess race 3,000 years ago until Meliodas' actions caused his people to wage war against the Goddesses and Stigma, an alliance of the Human, Giant, Fairy races. The demons were sealed away, only to be released into Britannia through the machinations of the demon Fraudrin. The high-ranking Demons possess seven hearts, making them difficult to kill.
Demon King
The is the series antagonist and the ruler of the Demon Clan, and being the father of Meliodas and Zeldris as well as the one who cursed Elizabeth with reincarnation. Like the Supreme Deity, he was created by the entity Chaos whom they sealed away. Due to his power being potent enough to wipe out Britannia, he is physically forced to remain in Purgatory. He is also the creator and leader of the Ten Commandments, handpicking its members and granted them their Commandments to condition them as potential vessels to transfer his spirit once one among them absorbed all the Commandant sigils. During the New Holy War, the Demon King manages to possess Meliodas when he absorbed the Commandants and engages his son in the metaphysical battle while battling his comrades and mortally wounding Zeldris. Though purged from Meliodas, the Demon King's spirit was able to take over Zeldris's body with Cusack's help before engaging the Seven Deadly Sins in an epic battle. The Demon King is eventually exorcised from Zeldris, forcing the entity to create a body from the surrounding countryside before Meliodas destroys his father for good. However, the Demon King's death causes an imbalance that weakened the he and the Supreme Deity placed on Chaos.
Ten elite demons selected personally by the Demon King, they were originally led by Meliodas 3000 years prior before he fell in love with Elizabeth, which caused the Holy War. Each of the Ten Commandments can make use of a curse which plays on the virtue that they represent. The Commandments are named after virtues they are branded with, later revealed to be fragments of the Demon King's soul, which play on the nature of their curses. A commandment's sigil passes to whomever defeats the current holder or receives it willingly, with the one who possesses all ten sigils gaining power equal to the Demon King's yet subject to becoming his vessel. The Commandment sigils are eventually destroyed when Meliodas permanently destroys the Demon King.
Original Demon
is a centaur-like demon that Demon King had created as his adviser and ended up splitting into two separate beings as punishment for attempting to overthrow him during a revolt. The two halves of the Original Demons, Chandler and Cusack, are instilled with the need to mentor the Demon King's sons Meliodas and Zeldris as the Demon King's heirs with both unaware of how the succession works. The Original Demon is briefly restored during the New Holy War when Chandler and Cusack regain memories of their original self, before Mael's attack splintered him back into two components.
Lower Class Demons
The Vampires of Edinburgh
A Vampire Clan who had a treaty with the Demon Clan, but were sealed in a sarcophagus by the Demon Zeldris 3000 years prior, and 12 years prior to the inception of the story, they broke their seal and took over the Kingdom of Edinburgh, killing all of its inhabitants or turning them into vampires, including the Holy Knights. Since their presence threatened Liones and all of Britannia, The Seven Deadly Sins were sent to deal with them. It turns out that it was the Vampire King Izraf who broke the treaty by rebelling against the Demon Clan and Zeldris was intended to be the executioner, but instead, he sealed them since he was in love with the Royal Vampire Gelda.
Supporting characters
Liones Kingdom
The Liones Kingdom is the setting for most of the story with its being among the most powerful knight orders in Britannia. Sometime before the beginning of the series, via the machinations of the demon Fraudrin, Hendrickson orchestrates a coup d'état and takes control of Liones. This caused the kingdom to fall into a state of distress as citizens from towns and villages surrounding the kingdom were enslaved or forcefully recruited into joining the Holy Knights in preparation for a Holy War. Under the rule of the Holy Knights, death was the penalty for insubordination. Following Hendrickson's defeat and Dreyfus's disappearance, Baltra pardoned most of the knights as he preferred they atone for their actions.
Weird Fangs
The are Holy Knights in charge of, who aided in the capture of Ban whom they kept prisoner there. Following the destruction of Baste Prison, the surviving Weird Fangs leave Liones before later returning, only to learn of the chaos that occurred in their absence.
Roar of Dawn
are a group of independent Holy Knights known for their tenacity to see their missions through to the very end. They first encounter the Deadly Sins while tasked with decapitating the Armoured Giant and bringing his head to Helbram, with Gowther ending the conflict peacefully. The group later dwindles to two members after the other three were killed by Fraudin while escorting Dreyfus to prison.
Pleiades of the Azure Sky
Goddess Race
One of the five races of Britannia that are Demon Race's equals and are led by the Supreme Deity, a being created by Chaos alongside the Demon King before they sealed their creator away. Three millennia ago, as a result of Elizabeth falling in love with Meliodas, the Goddess Race declared war on the Demon with support from the humans, the giants, and the fairies. Though they won the war by using the Coffin of Eternal after the demon mage Gowther altered their memories that Mael was killed, the Supreme Deity was sealed away while the other members of the Goddess Race lose their physical forms. Following the return of the Demons, members of the Goddess Race begin to resurface and gather for a new Holy War.
