#a bunch

so, since I clearly didn't get over The Seven Deadly Sins, I shall share some of the brain soup with you. Because I'm such a good pal. Yadda yadda.

ANYWAYS

What's up with the thousand year old children?

I'm not going to touch character design today. Probably. There's a bunch of stuff to complain and critic there, it's never too early to complain about that may I say. But what I mean when I ask this question is: how does Nakaba deal with childishness in his characters? and does it end somewhere?

Well, let's start with underutilized childishness.

Diane is THE childish character out of the main cast. It's in the way she understands love and romance, it's in her clothing and hair style, it's in her "acting" as a character and dare I say, it's a really important part of her character arc.

(Honestly, I'm mostly here to complain about the fact that Nakaba had a bunch of good ideas and a really bad or simply disappointing development of them. I'm also here to obsses HARD about this series and cast. I love them all, the complaints are out of love, I swear)

Diane arc is, mostly, (implied) about growing into your own and reaching some kind of maturity. The main conflict here being that Diane doesn't share the pleasure of battling and proving one's strength that the rest of the world seems to value so much. Indeed, one could say that Diane lives in a world that values strength above all else. It's violent and war torn, full of conflicts and political schemes that she doesn't really understand. To help her suffering, not only she doesn't value strength, but the small, annoying humans insult her because of it. Because she is strong, and big, and a force to reckon with. She's a giant. And giants should love to fight.

At the start of the story, the Diane we're introduced to is one who loaths her body. She wants to be small, and soft, and fragile. She wanted to be protected and cared for. She wants to be loved and appreciated. And she thinks it impossible in the current status quo.

Unfortunately for her, this is a shounen manga. So pacifism is only an option for the healers.

in a world where character arcs are connected by the divine Thread of Plots, I suppose Diane would share a theme with two characters.

(You see this lady? She's the co-protagonist of the story. Amazing isn't it? Considering how little she appears.)

I would like to argue the following point: Diane and Elizabeth were supposed to share an arc. It all leads and implies to it. The constant loss of memory of a lover, but keeping of identity of the self — Elizabeth is always Elizabeth the same way Diane is always Diane, but Meliodas and King suffer in a hole of their own making. And, of course, the envy.

Elizabeth starts the story with a cause, but no strength or power of her own to fight for said cause. So she goes on a pretty suicidal mission to find people to help her. Diane starts the story with strength and power, but no cause or will to live for. So she goes and fights for her friends (Elizabeth included). She also spends a pretty long time hiding in security waiting for said friends to come find her, in case you wanted more "inverted reflections". Actually, I could also mention that Elizabeth doesn't recognize Meliodas when she mets in the tavern and he takes her in, while Diane recognizes King, but he runs away from her.

So they each have something that the other wants: Elizabeth wants strength of some kind, as she needs power, and Diane wants to be loved and respected for who she is, so she wants to be small like Elizabeth. It can be argued that what Diane needs is purpose, is what I'd argue if anything, so that she can move forward and appreciate herself for what she is. But if anything, being loved by others is what she searches for the entire story. Diane wants to be part of a community. She wants to find a place in which she fits. As she feels inadequate.

Something that she also shares with Elizabeth. So let's go back to the shared arc theory.

Both Elizabeth and Diane share of the frustration of being insufficient in different ways. They can't really be present the way they want to be, so they have to grow and work their way around the fact that they can't really be a certain way. They both have to reach the maturity to admit that certain juvenile dreams and fantasies will never be, but that doesn't mean that their lives are futile or that they aren't needed because of that. They are valuable members of society exactly the way they are.

Diane will never be small and fragile, but she doesn't need to be. There are people who will protect her and that she wants to protect in return. And with that, enters King.

I really like King, he's cool. And his storyline is really interesting too.

King is, well, the king of the fairies. His main job is to protect the forest where the fairies live and the fairies that live in it. The thing is: he fails miserably this one time and now he's haunted by the terrible vision of the forest burned down to coal and no people to call his own. All because he went around for some centuries doing side quests.

I don't have much to speculate about King's character arc because it actually happened and was shown during the events of the manga and, probably, the anime (I didn't finish the anime). Differently from Diane, this poor fool had the chance to shine for a time. So I'll keep it short.

Diane wanted to feel loved, of course, but she also lacked purpose. We can't really exist alone, that's simply not part of the human experience and it reflects in our stories. Diane needed purpose, she needed a community in which she could take part. While King's character arc was coming to terms that, yes, he failed. He screwed up big. The forest was burned down, the fairy clan had to flee and started again somewhere else and they kinda hate him for it. But he's still needed. He's still King of the fairies. There's still reason to keep fighting.

If what Diane learned together with Elizabeth (aka, they both should have learned this, probably in similar time stamps in the story, as a cornerstone for their storyline) was that she is lovable for who she, that she's a respectable member of society who deserves to live with others. Then I suppose that what she could learn from King is that strength brings in responsibility and that the point of living together is to make it easier, not harder. Those who have more should share with those who have less, so that at the end of the day everyone has their fill.

If Diane is to become queen of the fairies equal to King in social standing, then she too needs to learn to share what she has with the rest of the people. Aka, the lesson here (cause every storyline has a lesson of some kind) should be that we should help others even if we don't like them that much or don't know them at all, that's kind of what makes society work and all that.

Also, Nakaba, good sir, how come you give a character a power called "Creation" (It's called Criação in dub, so) AND NEVER MAKE THEM RAISE A GIANT TREE OUT OF THE GROUND?! DO YOU KNOW HOW GREAT IT'D BE IF KING AND DIANE'S COMBINED ATTACKED MADE A FOREST OUT OF A DESERT?!

anyways I'm mad Diane doesn't really have a power that's special to her. Like, her whole thing is that she isn't really a warrior, she's a creator. She doesn't like to use her sacred treasure special attack because it hurts the animals and all that. Give the girl a spell that makes her create something, the way Meliodas' Full Counter is his signature move even if it isn't his own unique magic. Why couldn't you give the girl something?

Trying to break down his ass into things that make more sense to my brain