Seven Deadly Sins of Equestria · 12:28am Feb 14th, 2015
This is more of something I noticed than a story I wish to write, but it doesn't make it any less interesting to me. You see, ever since I became a Brony (After season 3, close to when season 4 was going to air) I noticed a strange trend with some of the Villains of the show. Slowly, I began to piece together that not just the villains, but all powerful creature of Equestria seemed to bear one of the Seven Deadly sins.
Let's begin in order shall we?
The very first episode of MLP showed Nightmare Moon, the incarnation of the deadly sin of Envy. Nightmare Moon tried to bring forth an eternal night because her subjects didn't appreciate the night time like they did her sister's day. Her jealousy turned her into something vile and caused her to make extremely cruel choice. Let's face it, a world without the sun would be a dying world. Nothing would grow in an eternal night so there would be no food to eat. Nightmare Moon would have unknowingly caused her subjects to starve to death unless she recognized her actions.
The next villain to show would be Discord, the incarnation of Pride. Why pride you ask? Well because of who he is and how he was defeated. He is the all powerful God of Chaos. He had in the season two parter, actually won against the Mane Six. He had succeeded in Discording them, and breaking their friendship. Yet when he saw them come together again, obviously not discorded, he still remained idle and allowed himself to be fired at. He was too prideful to admit he might have not won after all.
Chrysalis is next. Chrysalis is the incarnation of Lust. She wanted love. She needed love. She and her people survive on it as food. She would do anything for love. Without it, she dies. It is truly, an unquenchable lust for love. Unquenchable because if she ever stops pursuing love, she will literally die.
Then we come to Sombra. One could already tell what deadly sin he represents. The deadly sin of Wrath. Sombra is said to be cruel, evil, and everything vile you could think of. He enslaved an entire Empire on a whim and fought against two Princesses, never relenting in his quest for power.For his violence and dark powers, he is still the only villain to have been killed for his crimes.
Finally, our last villain is Tirek. The incarnation of Gluttony. He literally ate magic. Magic he would take on as his own. The more he ate, the more powerful he would become. His sole goal was to eat the Alicorn magic of Equestria. He tricked Discord into helping him devour all of the magic the ponies of the three tribes and once he was done, continued to Canterlot to finish the Princesses. He became outraged when he couldn't ate what wasn't there. So angry in fact, his once calm demeanor became an outlast of shouts. Once he found out of Twilight, quickly set out to eat her magic, even though he was already the most powerful one in the Kingdom where he could have built a fortress for himself. He even went as far as eat Discord's magic but he was still not satisfied. Even after he finally won an ate the alicorn magic Twilight had stocked up. He went on a rampage. He wanted more.
Now I can already hear ya'll saying: "But Note! There are Seven Deadly Sins! There are only five villains! We're still missing two villains to complete all the sins!" To that, I say hold your horses. I too was stuck at this point and thought that perhaps I would have to wait until more villains came out to see if this was the case, but truth be told, not only villains sin. The last two sins actually belong to two 'good' guys.
Starting it off is Starswirl the Bearded, the incarnation of Greed. Celestia speaks of him as "Some pony who could not finish his masterpiece spell because he could not make friends." Why do you think he could not do so? He was clearly in good terms with Celestia and Luna. Could it be he shut himself off? He didn't want to share his secrets whether they were too dangerous or simply so no other could accomplish his feats? No matter the reason, he worked on his own and created his own spells. His thirst for magic would never end. A path Celestia feared Twilight would fall in had she stayed the way she was. A lonely book shut in.
Envy, Pride, Lust, Wrath, Gluttony, Greed. There is one Sin missing. One sin we have called out time and time again in the show. One sin that was a true gripe with many fans of the show. Celestia's sin of Sloth. How many times had Celestia done nothing while Twilight and her friends battled out evils against Equestria? How many times was she "Useless" when things finally mattered? The thing is, Celestia represents perhaps the worst of the Sins. After all, what kind of person would stand idle when they have the power to help? Sloth be damned if Twilight had even once been unable to win over the threats she faced.
But what are your thoughts? Think perhaps my lists of ponies or reasoning are off? I'd love to see what ya'll think.
Very good. I felt that each sin fit and I agree that Celestia is sloth in every way. Nicely done Note, nicely done.
please excuse me while I pick up the shattered pieces of my mind.
2794310 That was actually my first thought, but he just didn't seem to fill that 'All powerful creature of Sin' that all the others of the list do. I mean, if Spike could control his transformation between his baby form and his adult, that would be something else entirely.
I have a distinct feeling that Greed will show up in an S5 villian. Just a hunch I have... don't know why.
To be fair, Celestia did try to fight against Chrysalis only to have her flank handed to her on a silver platter. Even the Mane 6 couldn't take the Changeling Queen and her army down. In the end, that was Cadence and Shining Armor. Also Celestia and Luna aren't connected to the Elements anymore, and we know they clearly needed them to stop Discord the first time or they never would've gone searching for them in the first place.
I do have to wonder why Celestia was preparing Twilight for ascension though. They've never really gone into that, only that she was doing it, and Luna knew about it, presumably after Celestia told her.
2794575 That's true, but only after letting Chrysalis Monologue for a few minutes. It just seems to me that eight times out of ten, Celestia doesn't do anything or react fast enough.
Do I do hope that now that S5 is coming out, the ascension thing will be explained further. I mean, according to the previews, it seems there is a high emphasis on their connection to the elements and the Tree of Harmony. Can you imagine what it would have meant if Celestia found the tree and was given a revelation that a powerful wielder would be needed for the magic element of harmony and that is the reason she had gone around making more alicorns?
2794402 Well if Starswirl was studying spell after spell, one could say he found and created powerful spells of destruction. I mean, he easily overpowered the Sirens and sent them to another dimension. Sirens, that by that point had drained enough magic to spread across Equestria. They were not weak by any means, yet he was able to defeat them by himself.
2794635 Sirens were more of a temptation of lustful desires. They sung beautiful songs to captivate a sailor to leave his ship and then kill him afterwards. At least, that's how I remember it.
I base off each character on my list and their relation to a sin on their downfall.
The reason I have Discord as Pride, is because his pride was the reason he lost. Had he retreated and planned for another day, he might have won.
Had Tirek drained Discord's magic as soon as he realized the Alicorns didn't have any and remained in Canterlot to build a fortress, he would have won.
Had Sombra not seen red as soon as he came back. Had he not let his wrath blind him, he might have been able to win via a more sneaky approach. Yet he charged in guns blazing to attack the Princesses on sight.
Had Starswirl opened up and made a friend, not kept it all to himself, he might have finished his master spell.
I could go on, but you get the idea. The reason they lost or didn't get what they wanted was because of the sin they represent. After all, a sin is something that hinders you. If you represent a sin, you are marked for loss from the get go.
2794662 Doesn't the Star Swirl thing contradict there though? Because if I remember, it was Star Swirl who taught Tirek's brother Scorpan about friendship wasn't it? Did the show make some sort of paradox on itself without the writers realizing it?
2794716 Ha! I just realized that! Yeah, the show clearly stated that he showed Scorpan the meaning of Friendship, yet Celestia said Starswirl could complete his spell cause he didn't understand the magic of friendship.
How strange. Yeah, looks like I still have some details to fine tune with this theory of Seven Deadly Sins of Equestria
2794717 That is very true as well, but what sin could Discord represent though? Gah, like I said, it was just a cool idea that had been in my head for a while, but I must make out some details.
2794792 this reminds me of a conspiracy theory that i heard about. it's just like yours, and how you represented the villains with a sin. but only the cartoon that i'm talking about is the one and only Spongebob Squarepants. and the main 7 characters in spongebob were all represented by a sin as well as your villains. for example, sandy cheeks was pride, because she was always so proud of her inventions and boastful of her strength and intelligence. Mr. Krabs was greed. (i think we all know that one) plankton was envy, because he was jealous of his rivals success. patrick was sloth, always lazy. Gary (spongebobs snail) was gluttony, there's a long running gag in spongebob about "oh gary must be hungry" or "oops, i forgot to feed gary" Squidward was wrath. he was always so hateful of everything other than things he already liked. and finally spongebob him self represented lust. he always had an unusual love for literally EVERYTHING around him. so your theory and the spongebob theory are very close together when your think about it.
2794792 It's possible that Celestia has a faulty memory, as after all even for the Doctor in Doctor Who, he's been shown to have a faulty memory sometimes (even if it's just because events in time haven't caught up to him or something) and the Doctor's very old himself.
Celestia also could've lied to Twilight in saying that Star Swirl never finished it because he never understood the magic of friendship (which Twilight's Kingdom proved false because Star Swirl clearly did). It's called Star Swirl's 'secret unfinished spell. in Magical Mystery Cure and it's possible that Star Swirl died before he could attempt to finish the spell. It's not hard for a ruler to lie and say that someone from the past abandoned something they'd been working on right?
I just thought of something else. Wouldn't Tirek more represent the sin of Greed than Gluttony? He only ate magic because that's now he absorbed it. He had aspirations of conquering Equestria, and was imprisoned in Tartarus for it. If anything, the sin of Gluttony would probably better fit the parasprites, even though they weren't even a major villain of the show.
Just my personal thoughts.
This is a rather nice theory there Note.
Awesome and interesting theory! Thumbs up from me!