Seven deadly sins in popular culture

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The Ladder of Divine Ascent described by Saint John Climacus.
The Ladder of Divine Ascent described by Saint John Climacus.

The Seven Deadly Sins have long had an influence on writers and artists due to the influences of the sins on society. There are many references in cultural works, and a number of these are listed below.

Contents

[edit] Cultural references

[edit] Classical sources

A fresco by Michelino depicting Dante holding a copy of The Divine Comedy; the seven terraces of Mount Purgatory rise prominently in the background.
A fresco by Michelino depicting Dante holding a copy of The Divine Comedy; the seven terraces of Mount Purgatory rise prominently in the background.
The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things by Hieronymus Bosch.
The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things by Hieronymus Bosch.
  • John Climacus (7th century) in the The Ladder of Divine Ascent places victory over the eight thoughts as individual steps of the thirty-step ladder: wrath (8), vainglory (10, 22), sadness (13), gluttony (14), lust (15), greed (16, 17), acedia (18), and pride (23).
  • Peter of Damascus (12th century) proposed a list of 298 passions in Treasury of Divine Knowledge (I.39) [1]. Each of the SDS are mentioned.
  • Dante Alighieri's (1265-1321 A.D.) Divine Comedy is a three-part work composed of Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradise. Inferno divides hell into nine concentric circles, four of which directly correspond to some of the deadly sins (Circle 2-lust, 3-gluttony, 4-greed, 5-wrath). The remaining circles do not neatly map onto the seven sins. In Purgatory, the mountain is scaled in seven levels and follows the sequence of Thomas Aquinas (starting with pride).
  • William Langland's (c. 1332-1386) Vision of Piers Plowman is structured around a series of dreams that are critical of contemporary errors while encouraging godly living. The sins are mentioned in this order: proud (Passus V, lines 62-71), lechour (V.71-74), envye (V.75-132), wrathe (V.133-185), coveitise (V.186-306), glutton (V.307-385), sleuthe (V.386-453) (using the B-text). [2]
  • Geoffrey Chaucer's (c. 1340-1400) Canterbury Tales features the seven deadly sins in The Parson's Tale: pride (paragraphs 24-29), envy (30-31), wrath (32-54), sloth (55-63), greed(64-70), gluttony (71-74), lust (75-84). [3]
  • Hieronymus Bosch - The Seven Deadly Sins and the Four Last Things produced in 1485.
  • Christopher Marlowe's (1564-1593) The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus shows Lucifer, Beelzebub, and Mephistophilis coming from hell to show Dr. Fastus "some pastime" (Act II, Scene 2). The sins present themselves in order: pride, greed, envy, wrath, gluttony, sloth, lust. [4]
  • Edmund Spenser's (1552-1599), The Faerie Queene addresses the seven deadly sins in Book I (The Legend of the Knight of the Red Cross, Holiness): vanity/pride (Canto IV, stanzas 4-17), idleness/sloth (IV.18-20), gluttony (IV.21-23), lechery/lust (IV.24-26), avarice/greed (IV.27-29), envy (IV.30-32), wrath (IV.33-35). [5]

[edit] Books and comics

Seven Deadly Enemies of Man, as originally depicted in Captain Marvel series (from Whiz Comics #2)
Seven Deadly Enemies of Man, as originally depicted in Captain Marvel series (from Whiz Comics #2)
  • The Seven Deadly Sins is a book series released by Oxford University Press. The series is a collaboration involving seven distinguished writers: Wendy Wasserstein, Simon Blackburn, Robert Thurman, Francine Prose, Michael Dyson, Joseph Epstein, and Phyllis Tickle.
  • Each volume of C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia illustrates the danger of one of the seven deadly sins: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe = gluttony, Prince Caspian = lust (for power), The Voyage of the Dawn Treader = greed, The Silver Chair = sloth, The Horse and His Boy = pride, The Magician's Nephew = wrath, The Last Battle = envy. [6]
  • The Homunculi in the manga and anime Fullmetal Alchemist are named after the seven deadly sins, each one being a physical representation of its namesake. The anime also makes a reference to Dante.
  • The Bangsian webcomic Jack features the seven deadly sins as characters. Having committed the sins to such extremes, they became the embodiment of the respective sins in Hell. The title character is the embodiment of Wrath.
  • The Seven Deadly Sins (formerly The Seven Deadly Enemies of Man) are depicted in Fawcett Comics/DC Comics stories as magic-based supervillains, enemies of Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family.
  • Lawrence Sanders (died Feb. 1998) author of the book The Anderson Tapes (1969), featuring Edward X. "Iron Balls" Delaney, retired chief of detectives in New York, New York, who was also featured in four other novels by Sanders: The First Deadly Sin (1973), The Second Deadly Sin (1977), The Third Deadly Sin (1981), and The Fourth Deadly Sin (1985).
  • In the book A Northern Light, Mattie thinks there is another deadly sin (the eighth): Hope
  • Each of the days in "The Keys to the Kingdom" series by Garth Nix represents one of the sins, these being speculated (mostly with good basis) as: Monday - Sloth; Tuesday - Greed; Wednesday - Gluttony; Thursday - Wrath; Friday - Lust(For knowledge); Saturday - Envy; Sunday - Pride. Their counterparts, the seven virtues are represented by seven pieces of an entity known as the Will.
  • Sins: Venials is a humorous webcomic by the writer/artist Pip that focuses on the physical incarnations of the Sins.
  • In A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell, the narrator, Nick Jenkins, is invited to a dinner at Stourwater, the country house of Sir Magnus Donners, a wealthy and powerful businessman rumored to maintain a dungeon in which he may or may not enjoy chaining up his fashionable wives and girlfriends. The dining room is hung with tapestries depicting the Seven Deadly Sins, and after dinner, Sir Magnus photographs his guests in tableaux enacting each of the deadlies. Nick enacts Sloth.
  • "The Seven Deadly Sins" is the name of a teen book series from Simon & Schuster written by Robin Wasserman about a group of morally deficient high school students. Each book in the series is named after a sin: Lust, Envy, Pride, Wrath, Sloth, Gluttony (April 10, 2007), and Greed (July 10, 2007).
  • In the Deltora series, in one of the books of its Deltora Quest series, Valley of the Lost, one of the villains in the story, the Guardian of the Diamond, became a puppet to the series' main villain, the Shadow Lord, because he developed sinful tendencies, four of which are based on the Seven Deadly Sins. These evil feelings took on the form of four demons that were attached to the Guardian through cords of flesh, these monsters were named Pride, Greed, Envy and Hate (possibly based on Wrath), although strangely enough the Guardian didn't name the monsters after the sin that they represented, Pride was envious, Greed was hateful, Envy was vain and Hate was greedy. These monsters are physical manifestations of the Guardian's sins.
  • In Maciek Kur's book Stowarzyszenie Umarłych dusz czyli traumo-pocieszne przygody Znicza Deathsoul the seven Imps appers in the fifth chapter, and each one have a personality after and have names similar to each of seven deadly sins. The imps are: Greederik (greed), Angresia (Anger), Glutonik (Gluttony), Acedian (Sloth), Hybrys (Pride), Enwi (Envy), and Lustin (Lust).
  • The newest edition of the Roleplaying game, World of Darkness, has all Seven Deadly Sins as a Vice mechanic, in which a character has one of the sins as his vice, and is rewarded if he indulges in that vice. Also included as an equally important Virtue mechanic is the Seven Heavenly Virtues.

[edit] Music and art

The Seven Deadly Sins in the recording with Lotte Lenya.
The Seven Deadly Sins in the recording with Lotte Lenya.
Greed
Greed
Pride
Pride
Envy
Envy
Lust
Lust
Gluttony
Gluttony
Anger
Anger
Sloth
Sloth

[edit] Plays

Dr Faustus, Christopher Marlowe. Note that the WPA production at the Federal Theatre Project, directed by John Hauseman and starring Orson Welles, featured seven rod puppets designed, built and operated by Bil Baird. He met his future wife Cora [nee Burlar] Baird on that production as she was playing the voices of some of the Sins.

[edit] TV, Radio and Movies

The seven stranded castaways of Gilligan's Island as stereotypes of the seven deadly sins; from left to right:Mr. Howell (the millionaire) - greedThe Professor - prideMrs. Lovey Howell - thoughtless excess (gluttony)Gilligan - slothGinger (the movie star) - extravagance (later lust)The Skipper - anger (wrath)Mary Ann - envy
The seven stranded castaways of Gilligan's Island as stereotypes of the seven deadly sins; from left to right:

Mr. Howell (the millionaire) - greed
The Professor - pride
Mrs. Lovey Howell - thoughtless excess (gluttony)
Gilligan - sloth
Ginger (the movie star) - extravagance (later lust)
The Skipper - anger (wrath)
Mary Ann - envy
  • Se7en, (1995) - A serial killer obsessed with the seven deadly sins, reconstructs each one through his crimes.
  • "The Devil's Nightmare", (1971) - Supernatural forces kill off a party of tourists through the seven deadly sins.
  • "Class Reunion Massacre (aka Redeemer: Son of Satan!)", (1976 or 1978)-A priest, perhaps possessed by an evil spirit, lures a group of people to their old highschool and, after locking them in, kills them off one by one. The characters are each introduced to us during one of the priest's sermons about the seven deadly sins, each character showing up as he mentions one more. In this film, the sins are "GLUTTONY IN ALL THINGS ...VANITY ...HOARDENESS ...PERVERSION ...LICENTIOUSNESS ...DEBAUCHERY ...AVARICE."
  • The Devil's Advocate, (1997) - In this film, Satan declares that due to its simplicity, vanity (Pride) is his favorite sin.
  • Metropolis, (1927) - In Fritz Lang's film, the protagonist Freder has a vision of the statues of the seven deadly sins in the city's Gothic cathedral. They come jerkily to life and leave their niches, led by the traditional embodiment of Death. They then disappear, leaving Death to spread disaster across the city. The scene is one of several in the Lang/von Harbou script in which the technological city of the future is contrasted with ancient religious/spiritual belief.
  • Serenity, (2005) - The main antagonist makes references to the seven deadly sins, while the hero claims he is a fan of all seven, but is particularly fond of wrath.
  • Pulp Fiction, (1994) - Subtle, underlying theme.
  • A pretext for the seven comic sketches in the motion picture The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins (1971).
  • Gilligan's Island, (1963-1967) - According to the book Inside Gilligan's Island by Sherwood Schwartz (St. Martin's Press, 1994), the creator of the show confesses that he purposely patterned the 'seven stranded castaways' after the seven deadly sins. He confesses that he didn't tell anyone until years after the show was over, because he thought that people would ridicule him for attributing such a serious theme to such a silly show (this was, however, referenced in the movie Rescue From Gilligan's Island).
  • The Muppet Show, (1975) - The pilot, Sex and Violence, featured a "Seven Deadly Sins pageant", in which six of the sins appeared at various times in the show prior to the pageant at the end, which was cancelled due to lack of time. (Sloth showed up late, so he didn't appear until after the closing credits.) Link from Muppet Wiki
  • "The Hollywood Squares", (1966-1983) - In one episode, host Peter Marshall asks panelist Paul Lynde a question enumerating the seven deadly sins ("What are... ?). The response, in typical Lynde fashion: "Oh, the Bill of Rights!"
  • America's Next Top Model, (2004, Cycle 4) - In the reality show hosted by former model Tyra Banks, the remaining seven contestants portrayed the seven deadly sins in a photo shoot. Brittany was Sloth, Christina was Lust, Kahlen was Wrath, Keenyah was Gluttony, Michelle was Pride, Naima was Envy, and Tatiana was Greed.
  • Charmed, (episode 'Sin Franciso') - A demon, Lukas, infects the Charmed Ones with a sin. Prue is infected with Pride, Piper with Gluttony, Phoebe with Lust, and Leo with Sloth. A business man is infected with Greed, and a police officer with Anger, and a pastor with Envy.
  • Bedazzled, (1967) - Stanley Moon meets incarnations of the seven deadly sins.
  • The villains of the children's BBC programme, Ace Lightning, can be related to the deadly sins. Lord Fear represents Pride/Wrath , Kilobyte represents Wrath/Pride, Lady Illusion represents Lust, Dirty Rat represents Greed, Pigface represents Gluttony/Greed and Rotgut represents Sloth.
  • Shoebox Zoo briefly mentions the deadly sins in the final episode, possibly meaning they might play a role in a third season, if one is to be made.
  • The Digimon series had a group of Mega leveled Digimon called The Seven Great Demon Lords. This group consists of seven digimon who represent each of the seven deadly sins.
  • Of all the scenes in Clerks, each addresses one of the seven deadly sins.
  • A clip episode of Third Rock from the Sun features the main characters talking about the Seven Deadly Sins, with scenes from episodes where whichever sin they're talking about. It also features scenes of people falling down, which the stupid character Harry thought was a sin.
  • Camp Lazlo episode "Seven Deadly Sandwiches" is a pun of the seven deadly sins. The episode features a play about famished traveler who encounters deadly sandwiches.
  • Robot Chicken had a skit about Jokey Smurf killing other Smurfs that represent the 7 deadly sins in a paradoy of Se7en (Lazy=Sloth Vainity=Pride Smurfet=Envy and so on)
  • In season 2 of Top Chef the remaining seven chefs each had to design a dish based on one of the 7 Deadly Sins. Michael - Envy, Betty - Sloth, Marcel - Lust, Ilan - Gluttony, Sam - Wrath, Cliff - Greed, and Elia - Pride.
  • In the anime Fullmetal Alchemist, the villains are homunculi (artificially created humans) each named after a deadly sin. Their personalities and powers reflect the sin they are named after to a greater or lesser degree. For example: Gluttony's power is to be able to eat anything and he is always hungry, Greed has a deep desire for material wealth and possession (he even explicitly states this is the reason why his name is Greed), and Lust is personified by an extremly curvy and beautiful woman who uses her sex appeal to her advantage.
  • On the 2007 Radio 4 programme "Mark Watson Makes the World Substantially Better", the comedian Mark Watson attempted to 'sort out the world' by eliminating one of the seven deadly sins every week in his show. For his first show, however, he dealt with Greed and Gluttony ("also known as 'the similar sins'") together in a 'special introductory offer'.

[edit] Video games and other media

  • Mest has recently released a DVD titled 7 Deadly Sins.
  • A fan site called The Seven Deadly Sims has produced a series of downloadable items that can be used in Electronic Art's The Sims. The items are categorized by the seven deadly sins based on color, function, and style.
  • The seventh series of Mezco's Living Dead Dolls based on 7 deadly sins and it was only one series that has seven dolls.
  • Final Fantasy XI, (2003, VG-Squarenix) - A series of seven skeleton monsters are named after the seven deadly sins.
  • Devil May Cry 3, (2004, VG-Capcom) - Demonic entities that represent the seven deadly sins early in the game are the jail keepers of their respective sins. Each one of the demons is formed from sand, except for Envy, which is formed from a thick green liquid. Furthermore, each of the seven "devil" bosses in the game also represents one specific sin.
  • Afterlife, (1996, VG-LucasArts) - A SimCity-like game played with Heaven and Hell. Areas are zoned according to the Seven Sins (in Hell) and the Seven Virtues (in Heaven).
  • ActRaiser 2, (1993, VG-Nintendo) - Features seven demon bosses representing the seven deadly sins. They are represented by: an old-looking demon riding a cloud (sloth), a decaying, worried zombie head (envy), an ant/scorpion chimera (gluttony), a muscular man on fire resembling a Japanese demon (wrath), a jewel and gold-wearing dragon (greed), a demon-faced fetus with a king trapped inside (lust) and a god-like machine (pride).
  • Shadow Hearts: From the New World - This Playstation 2 RPG features an optional dungeon with enemies and boss monsters based on the Seven Deadly Sins. The final boss of the dungeon is Envy (called Jealousy in the game).
  • In the MMORPG Ragnarok Online, the novice class must pass a test, to become the acolyte class, by either destroying several zombie monsters named after the Seven Deadly Sins, or by ignoring them and crossing the test room to the exit.
  • The Living Dead Dolls, a macabre toy line created by Mezco Toys has based their 7th series off the 7 deadly sins, with Vanity replacing 1 of the sins, Pride, which is essentially the same thing.
  • In the Playstation Portable game Rengoku 2: Stairway to H.E.A.V.E.N., the first seven floors (discluding the basement) are named after the Seven Deadly Sins: 1F Superbia, 2F Invidia, 3F Ira, 4F Acedia, 5F Avaritia, 6F Gula, and 7F Luxuria.

[edit] Foodstuffs

  • Hell is a New Zealand-based pizza chain that has pizzas named after the seven deadly sins.
  • In 2003, the ice-cream brand Magnum released seven limited-edition flavours, named after the seven deadly sins e.g. Envy was green (mint) with pistachios, lust was pink (strawberry). The only sin that was not represented in the series of ice creams was Wrath that was replaced by Revenge.
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