The Meaning Behind The Seven Deadly Sins In Fullmetal Alchemist, Explained

This post contains spoilers for the "Fullmetal Alchemist" franchise.

"Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood" endures as one of the most beloved anime ever made, and with its recent return to Netflix, there's no better time for Fullmetal novices to take the plunge.

Set during an alternate history's 1910s in the German-ish country Amestris, "Fullmetal Alchemist" stars the eponymous Edward Elric. He and his little brother Alphonse are on a quest to find the Philosopher's Stone. After they tried to use alchemy to bring their mother back to life, Edward lost an arm and leg while Al's soul was trapped in a suit of armor. The Stone can bypass alchemy's equivalent exchange principle — that to gain, you must give up something. (Alchemy's effects may look like magic, but it's governed by the laws of science, thermodynamics included.)

On their journey, the Elrics stumble onto a sinister conspiracy masterminded by a group of homunculi, or alchemically-created humans. Dressed all in black, these homunculi each embody one of the seven deadly sins that their Father, the original homunculus, cast off. Dare I say "Fullmetal Alchemist" is the most famous use of these sins in pop culture next to David Fincher's "Se7en"? 

The sins come from Christianity, listed in their current form by Pope Gregory I and further defined centuries later by Saint Thomas Aquinas. It's one of the many Western and/or Abrahamic ideas that "Fullmetal" author Hiromu Arakawa used, like the Philosopher's Stone itself and the Kabbalistic imagery connected to the Gate of Truth. 

But the Sins can transcend beyond their Christian roots and more generally be the fallacies of man. Even if you don't care about being humble before God, being too prideful is still unpleasant and can backfire on you. "Fullmetal Alchemist" is easily one of the most tightly written shonen manga/anime out there, and one sign of that is how the Sins flow through the text beyond the homunculi literally embodying them.

The only female homunculus and the first one we meet, Lust is a classical femme fatale.

Her pale skin and black dress almost make it look like she stepped off the screen of an old Hollywood noir; her flowing raven hair rivals Ava Gardner's. Like the ladies of those old movies, Lust is a Venus Flytrap woman who ensnares men with her pretty face and low cut strapless gown. It's not just the ouroboros tattoo above her cleavage that'll catch your eyes. Once she's got her victims in her sharp talons, she strikes. 

Lust is "The Ultimate Spear" — she can harden her fingers and extend them into sharp claws. She doesn't use them only as slashing weapons, either, but as piercing projectiles. She can launch her spear as quick and hard as any bullet, and there's no limit to how far she can stretch them. Stand across a room from Lust and as long as she has a line of sight, her spear will be reaching across the room, through your skull before you can blink. So yes, Lust's weapon is to stretch and harden her body, then use it to penetrate her targets. Once you notice the sexual symbolism here, it's impossible to unsee.

Lust is more cold than a tease, but she can flirt if she wants, like when she warns Colonel Roy Mustang: "It seems like you should buy a girl dinner first, before you stick her hand in her chest!" But Mustang ends Lust, using his flame alchemy to burn her to death over and over until she's only dust.

Fire is the perfect symbolism of lust: It burns hot, bright, and fast. Lust is one of the most intensely-felt of the sins, but it's one of the least enduring. When it erupts, it can rule men's minds, but all it takes is a splash of cold water to end that. Think of the phrase "fiery passion," which is exactly how Lust met her demise.

Gluttony is often seen by Lust's side. They have contrasting designs of course — a tall and vivacious woman next to a short, obese, childlike man. She's also his sister sin of the ravenous. 

Of the homunculi, Gluttony is the most literal personification of his sin. He talks all the time about eating, and he'll eat anything — from humans to inedible objects like stone. Gluttony is often imagined as uncontrollable overeating, so Gluttony the homunculus is utterly ruled by his appetite. He's literally not able to think about anything but eating, and he needs one of his siblings to mind and direct him.

About halfway through the series, we learn there's more to Gluttony's power. His stomach is the doorway to another dimension and, when he's angered enough, his mouth splits open vertically to open across his torso. Like how Lust is a female homunculus with a phallic power, Gluttony is a male but his powered-up state looks like a vagina dentata. That maw can suck up anything in its path, and it explains why Gluttony can never be full; his stomach is literally a bottomless pit.

On that note, Gluttony has the most obviously ironic death of the homunculi: He's devoured by a greater power.

Aquinas defined Envy as "sorrow over the good of another." Usually, that sorrow is felt because that other person has something you want but don't have, be it wealth, love, happiness, or power. Envy drives you not to better yourself, but to stew with hatred for that other person. You want them to lose what they have even more than you want to gain it yourself.

So, Envy the homunculus is a shapeshifter. Envy is all about stealing what others have, so Envy can take everything about someone by literally stealing their identity. They can also spread the discord and pain that envious people desire; Envy murders the Elrics' friend Lt. Colonel Maes Hughes by shapeshifting into his wife Gracia, stealing his happiness by adopting the very face of it.

Envy is often considered the ugliest of the seven sins, and I see why, because there is simply no upside to it. Pride, lust, gluttony and sloth can all feel pleasant, even if overindulging them will be harmful. Wrath can come from a good place (it's good to be angry at injustice, for instance). Greed can also drive someone to succeed and claim what they want, but Envy does no such thing. Philosopher Bertrand Russell said:

"Not only does the envious person wish to inflict misfortune and do so whenever he can with impunity, but he is also himself rendered unhappy by envy. Instead of deriving pleasure from what he has, he derives pain from what others have."

Most of the time, Envy prefers to look like an androgynous young person — but that, too, is a disguise. Their true form is an enormous reptilian monster with green skin. Green is the color most associated with Envy, linked together by Shakespeare describing jealousy as "the green-eyed monster" in "Othello."

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So, if Envy can look like anything they want, why do they choose to look like one of the humans they despise? Because, as Edward eventually realizes, Envy is (of course) jealous of humans and their ability to love and improve. Unable to stand being pitied, Envy's last act is to end another suffering life — their own.

Führer King Bradley rules Amestris as a military dictator. He leads his nation in expansionist conquest, border wars, and a genocidal campaign against the people of the desert region Ishval. His stern, mustachioed face, eyepatch, and deadly swordsmanship all say he's bad news, but he acts pretty nice to the Elrics at first (key word being acts). 

It's suggested early on that the homunculi's conspiracy is intertwined with the Amestrian military, which becomes undeniable once Bradley reveals his true self as the homunculus Wrath. His eyepatch hides not a scar but his "Ultimate Eye" (marked by the homunculi's ouroboros). The eye gives him the ability to see and react impossibly quickly, to the point of outright clairvoyance. 

This makes Wrath the ultimate warrior, because when you duel him, he'll see your strike before you even make it and then cut you down. Not even a tank can withstand his fury. His "Ultimate Eye" could also be read as representing the omniscient view of an authoritarian state. Bradley, looking down on characters Mustang and Hughes from yards away in a key moment, spots their intention to overthrow him clear as day. 

Anger is typically explosive, but Wrath keeps a cool head, focusing his rage and hatred for humanity into precise performance on the battlefield. The one time his anger does come out is in his last battle against the Ishvalan warrior Scar. It's fitting Bradley falls to a survivor of his genocide, but Scar does not kill him out of vengeance. Scar wanted revenge at the beginning of the story, but learned to control his anger and redirect it towards building a better future. The climax of Scar's arc is literally overcoming Wrath, the sin that was his own flaw.

Sloth is the sin of laziness, negligence, and apathy, qualities all abundant in the homunculus Sloth. An enormous slow-talking hunchback about as smart as Gluttony, Sloth is dull where Gluttony is as hyperactive as a child. Sloth doesn't speak much, but when he does, it's usually the same three words: "What a pain..." 

Yet, Father commands that Sloth be the most diligent of the homunculi; the Homunculus' plan involves turning all of Amestris into a giant transmutation circle, and it's Sloth's job to dig out that circle. He's been at it for decades and, when the series unfolds, he's almost complete.

Sloth wears chains on his wrists, which sap his otherwise remarkable speed. Feelings of sloth can feel like invisible chains, holding you back from doing something you want to or putting your talents to full use, so Sloth the homunculus wears literal chains. 

Major Alex Louis Armstrong is the hero who takes down Sloth in the final arc. Armstrong has a muscular body worthy of his name, but it holds a soft and sensitive soul; he was one of the only State Alchemists who opted out of the Ishvalan genocide. He knew it was wrong, but ran away instead of fighting to stop it, the most cowardly option, and so his sister General Olivier Armstrong disdains him. The Armstrong siblings face Sloth together and, despite being outmatched, Alex refuses to run away again and triumphs. 

The Slothful will always take the easiest path forward, and if others can set that path for them with commands, even better. Armstrong overcomes his moral sloth when he faces his strongest opponent, the vice itself.

In "Wall Street," Michael Douglas' Gordon Gekko proclaimed: "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good!" "Fullmetal Alchemist" takes that a bit literally. Greed is the only homunculus who doesn't settle for working under Father. How could the living embodiment of ambition and desire settle for being number 2? Yet, his drive to improve also makes the Greed the most empathetic homunculus. He counts his friendships among his cherished possessions and ultimately sides with the heroes. Greed represents a necessary counterpoint to the sins. The seven vices may be deadly, but they're also essential parts of the human spirit. 

The problem is when they fall out of moderation, because greed kept in check is just ambition. As Greed tells Edward, his sin gets a bad rep from those who don't see how vital it is: "You humans think greed is just for money and power, but everyone wants something they don't have."

As for his powers, Greed is "The Ultimate Shield." He can transmute his skin into diamond-hard carbon, easily the homunculus power that most resembles other alchemy. (Edward is able to pierce the Ultimate Shield by transmuting parts of Greed's shell into graphite.)

This nickname and power make Greed a foil to Lust, an overlapping sin of desire. Yet, the difference between a spear and a shield delineates between reaching for something new versus preserving what you have. Greed's most treasured possession is his own life, so his power is all about protecting it. When Greed finds something he values even more — his friends — he sacrifices his life to defeat Father, finally filling the emptiness he felt in his soul. 

The closing narration of "Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood" episode 53 lectures that time and the choices we make are the building blocks of a human: "A person is only complete in their final moment." By that measure, Greed was the only homunculus who became anything close to a perfect being.

Pride is the final homunculus revealed, stepping into the light only during the final third of the series. He appears to be the young son of Führer Bradley, Selim, but that's only his shell. He's actually a constantly shifting mass of shadows, filled with fanged teeth, scary red eyes, and razor sharp edges, and capable of stretching his tendrils across continents.

He looks like the youngest homunculus, but Pride is Father's first child — his pride and joy, if you will. Pride is often held as the greatest, or leader, of the seven deadly sins. This is a sign of their Christian roots, because for some, the worst sin you can commit is thinking yourself above God. In that way, pride is also a childish sin. If you lack the self-awareness to see your faults or hold yourself higher than others, that's a sign of immaturity. 

So, Pride appears as a child, and that reflects back on Pride's primary human foil: Edward Elric. Ed began his journey with a moment of childish arrogance when he and Al tried to bring their mother back. Ed was so convinced of his alchemy skills that he violated the "Ultimate Taboo," thinking he could do what no one had ever done before. Even after that, he still takes pride in his alchemy, holding the science up as the key to understanding the universe itself. So, when Ed defeats Pride, it's part of his growth from boy to man, the growth that's completed when Ed surrenders his power to perform alchemy to recover Al's body. Though Ed walks away without the power he cherished, he earns a heart made fullmetal.

Selim, though, is purged of his memories and powers, restarting life as a normal human boy. For Pride, living like that would be the ultimate humiliation.

The first "Fullmetal Alchemist" anime was made in 2003, years before the manga finished, so the story became original halfway through. Some of the biggest and most compelling changes are about the homunculi. In this telling, the sins are not extensions of an original homunculus, but results of attempts to bring people back to life with alchemy. You can recreate the body and mind, but not the soul.

Their master is an alchemist named Dante, a la the author of the epic poem "Inferno" that defined the circles of Hell. Dante has cheated death for centuries, using Philosopher's Stones to transfer her body to younger ones as needed. She considers herself "the shepherd of sins," delusionally claiming she is protecting mankind from itself, and so names her minions after the deadly sins.

This different backstory and characterization means the themes of the sins are different, too. While Gluttony and Greed are basically the same characters in both series, '03 Lust has a desire to be human, while Envy (created by Ed and Al's dad, Hohenheim) is jealous of the Elric brothers. Sloth is turned into the homunculus of Ed and Al's mother, representing their inability to move on from her death.

As for Dante? She's devoured by Gluttony, which was her primary sin. She wanted more than her fair share of life, and stole other people's lives and bodies to get it.

You've surely noticed a pattern in "Fullmetal Alchemist" by now, about which hero defeats which homunculus. Edward, Scar, and Armstrong all vanquish the external embodiment of the sin that most challenges them. They're not fighting just to stop the bad guys from causing harm, they're facing their own flaws along the way. 

Arakawa didn't pick the seven deadly sins as her villains just for a neat motif. The choice offers a pillar of support to the thesis of "Fullmetal Alchemist" — that there's no such thing as a painless lesson. When the heroes battle the homunculi, Arakawa can show her audience that internal struggle, pain and all, playing out.

One character who doesn't overcome these sins? The one who created them, Father. As a homunculus, he was created because of man reaching into God's domain. In the present, he repeats that sin by attempting to steal God's power for himself, removing his sins to be more than human and achieve perfection. Except he never even came close.

In his last moments, Father meets The Truth, the embodiment of all knowledge and the one who punishes alchemists when they go too far. The Truth laughs at Father thinking that removing his "seven desires" would improve him; he didn't overcome his sins, or learn to accept and use them to always strive to be better. Despite Father's claims otherwise, his actions are still driven by the worst side of human nature.

The villains of "Fullmetal Alchemist" may discard the "human" label, yet they're only successful villains — extraordinary powers or no — because they're some of the story's most human characters.