Wait, Doesn't Escanor Die in 'The Seven Deadly Sins'? (SPOILERS)
Published June 30 2021, 12:10 p.m. ET
Spoiler alert: This article contains spoilers for Season 5 of The Seven Deadly Sins.
Escanor is the Lion Sin of Pride in The Seven Deadly Sins and is the last Sin to make an appearance in the anime. With his powerful ability called Sunshine, he gets more powerful the closer it gets to noon, but that also means he's the weakest at midnight. In the series, it's no secret that he inherited this ability, but how he did is a secret until almost the very end of the series.
Some fans are also concerned about Escanor's final moments in the series. Does he die or does he get the happy ending that we want all our heroes to have? Actually, things are more complicated than that, and what happens depends on what content you're paying attention to.
Does Escanor die in 'The Seven Deadly Sins'?
At the end of the anime, Escanor is still alive, but in the manga, he dies. In the manga, he uses Sunshine to the height of his ability to defeat the Demon King. In the end, it's too much for his body to take. Using so much power used all of his life force, and Escanor's body is turned into ash. But that's not what happens if you watch the anime. In it, all of the Sins survive the final battle.
In The Seven Deadly Sins anime, the Demon King fights two battles at once when he emerges from the cocoon in Meliodas's body. In the physical world, he's fighting Ban, who wants to literally beat the King out of the Captain's body. But in the spirit world, the King is fighting the spirit version of Meliodas since they both want control of his body.
Eventually, the whole thing turns into a religiously charged, high-stress version of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Gowther uses his powers to send some of the Sins, including Escanor and Elizabeth, into the spirit world to encourage Meliodas.
They can't physically intervene, but their presence and support are all Meliodas needs to gather his strength and defeat the Demon King from the inside. This makes it easier for Ban to finish him off on the outside.
Where did Escanor get his power?
It turns out that Meliodas only has one brother even though we were under the impression he had two for most of the series. Zeldris is his brother, but Estarossa never existed. During the Holy War, Gowther's creator wanted the war to end and used forbidden magic to alter the balance on both sides of the fight.
He said he needed to take someone on the side of the Goddess Clan who is as powerful as Meliodas and essentially switch them over to the side of the Demons.
For his own reasons, Gowther's creator chose Mael, one of the Four Archangels of the Goddess Clan, to transform into Estarossa so the Demon Clan would win. The spell also altered everyone's memories to agree to a new understanding of events.
Before the change, Mael had the power of Sunshine but lost favor with the ability when he became Estarossa. Sunshine was abandoned for 3,000 years until it became Escanor's, although we don't know why Sunshine chose him.
At one point in the anime, Escanor pleads with Mael to take Sunshine back in order to use it to help those in battle alongside Merlin, but Mael says that he's still unworthy of it and couldn't take it back if he wanted to.
At the end of the anime, we see that Escanor still has that power, and Mael seems to be at peace with that. But according to the Seven Deadly Sins Fandom, Mael does agree to take Sunshine back when Escanor asks in the manga.
