Discussion Holy Knight Arc Discussion

[Merlin918]

I know this arc is long over, but for anyone who is still interested in it, i think there is much to say. To me, it was the most well written and logically consistent arc of the series. On top of that, the core themes of the series felt strongest here. Certain iconic things include the Holy Knights Creed, Elizabeth's awakening of her powers and the well shown signs of her using them unknowningly, the fight against Hendrickson, and Gilthunder's marvelous performance despite his circumstances, which was key in allowing the Sins to save him and Margaret.

There is already a thread explaining the first Gilthunder fight. Here it is:

Discussion - Meliodas vs Gilthunder - Their first fight and Bernia DECODED.

http://www.mangahere.co/manga/nanats...i/c006/10.html Letting go of the Sins with the excuse of "Proving" he's stronger than the Sins. Then we find out: http://www.mangahere.co/manga/nanats...i/c006/11.html They could have just broken out whenever they wanted to. Heck, perhaps Gilthunder let...

mangahelpers.com

The summary breakdown is that Gilthunder confirmed that Meliodas was still alive by putting the lightning-sword in the ground and messing with the ale of the people in Bernia. This is because he had confirmed that Meliodas went to this town to stock up on ale every year, which meant it was a place he frequented, and that the other Sins also knew this and might seek him out here. Meanwhile, he would have people he could trust there whom he could ask for information about any sightings of the other Sins, which was exactly what he proceeded to do. By this logic, Gilthunder dried up the town, went back to his post, and waited for Meliodas to do something.

When word got back to him that Meliodas drew it, he threw a spear at the Boar Hat which Meliodas intercepted and returned back to him. Using a process of elimination he discovered that the only Sin who could have thrown it. How did he know that?

Ban was under arrest and King was currently an agent working for the Holy Knights and did not have the physical capabilities to throw a spear. Diane's size was inappropriate to allow her to grab and return a spear in such a fashion. Gowther was a slim possibility, but physical strength is not his main style of combat, so it was an unlikely one. Gilthunder knew the identity and abilities of Escanor, and if he was still around, it would be inevitable that his Sunshine abilities were suppressed and that he thus could not help. Merlin used magic and would also not fit. Finally, the one who did it was described as being just a boy, so Escanor could easily be ruled out.

Finally, Gowther's appearance was not known to Gilthunder or other Holy Knights. He remained in his giant armor all the time, so as far as Gil knew, Meliodas was the sole possibility, and he had presumably somehow not aged for all this time. It was still extremely unlikely that anyone besides the Sins would pop up who was suddenly as powerful as them, and the fact that this had happened in the town where Meliodas picked up ale put anything like that in 1% possibility territory. Overall though, it didn't matter who it was. The only failure condition would be if an unknown stranger or one of the Sins had picked up the sword and had inconveniently already left the town in the time it took for the soldiers there to relay information back to Gilthunder's current military outpost of residence, but he had to accept that infinitely slim chance that he would end up destroying the town.

This is just to show the amount of thinking Nakaba put into even simple scenes. And as the above thread explained, Meliodas confirmed in his duel with Gilthunder that Gilthunder was the one who threw the spear by saying 'Right back at you' twice in a row while also letting Gilthunder know before the fight that he was indeed the one there in Vanya to stop the spear by saying it out loud very obviously. Elizabeth might have otherwise been intimidated too much to say anything, and if instead of Gil there was simply a random opponent, he could have just attacked rather than started chatting. It just goes to show that he was testing the waters to see if Gilthunder has truly turned evil.

This level of thought isn't new. It is also why King and later Guila show up at the closest place to the Capital of the Dead to fight them:Based on Gilthunder's 'mistake' revealing the next two locations, Dreyfus and Hendrickson adjusted the plan, assuming that Meliodas's next two objectives would be the places Gil 'accidentally' revealed. King was sent alone because of his overwhelming power, and expected to kill the Sins, or at least cause enough trouble so that Guila would be able to help finish them off once she showed up. Overall they saw King as mostly expendable and Guila as an acceptable potential casualty. And Great Holy Knights like Dreyfus and Hendrickson seem to be bound to stay in the capital unless a disaster occurs, so they wouldn't be sent on a maybe mission like this. I am not saying there is perfect reasoning in all cases for every single decision, but there is a whole lot of thought put into this, not just random action and antagonists showing up for no reason.

Vivian's remote viewing powers with crystal balls let them see where the Sins were either way, but they saw the Vaizel Fight Festival as their next big chance. I don't think they expected Guila and Jericho to win, they were just the distraction, and Griamore and Helbram along with Veronica were the follow-through. Although ideally King would have been in on it too of course but he had joined the Sins and become a problem.

The real plan was having Veronica seal Mel away with the Goddess Amber held nearby to him, after which Griamore would trap Eli and Helbram would deal with King.Howzer's presence in the fight festival was unintentional since Hendrickson had no direct authority over him and he was not in the same faction as Hendrickson as noted in chapter 43. Him being there was part of what began the unraveling of the conspiracy. But the Goddess Amber was just a backup plan, the mines were intended to kill Elizabeth if she escaped and were just a moment away from doing so. She got seriously lucky. Soon after the bad guys were pretty much just going to win once Helbram beat Meliodas, but Diane just saved the day and made everyone win.

Vivian not teleporting in to kidnap Elizabeth during any of that may be somewhat explainable. There was always someone like Griamore close by who could stop her and she never really got a clear chance...I think. It would have been a pretty all in move, in any case, since losing Vivian means losing their sole teleporter which pretty much ends their backup plan for kidnapping elizabeth. I'm not saying 7DS Arc 1 is 100% perfectly logical in every way but it feels like it is at least pretty damn close. They could have teleported Hendrickson in along with Vivian perhaps, but even Hendy was not guaranteed to beat Diane with her sacred treasure, and they wanted to be finished preparing all the weaker holy knights for their demon transformations later on. And Dreyfus was not openly involving himself with Hendrickon as it was part of his masterplan to make Hendy seem like the main and only bad guy so he could be ready to swoop in and revive the Demons the moment he got some of Eli's blood.

And as it turned out, they didn't need to be sure they could kill the Sins, since they ended up just waiting for a moment when they were relaxed to have Vivian hop in and teleport her out suddenly before they could react. The only thing i'm not sure about on a little bit of analysis is about whether or not Hendy should've just wounded her and taken some blood right then, but i may be missing details. It is a great arc overall.

 

[Merlin918]

Even the fact that Elizabeth was not immediately sacrificed actually all made sense. The only ones totally in on the plan and willing to do that were Hendrickson, Dreyfus, and Vivian, they just didn't have co conspirators ready to go that far as far as i can tell. Or you'd think they would have proceeded immediately with that while Meliodas was still fighting the team of Vivian/Hendrickson/Gilthunder. It may be a minor plothole that they didn't cut Elizabeth and extract a little blood just in case immediately, but that could've just been an oversight. And Dreyfus was the one who picked up their slack so to speak.

One of my favorite moments in the whole arc was the whole scene of Meliodas rescuing Gilthunder from mind control and saving Margaret as well. That scene was so intense for me back when I first read it and saw the panel where Margaret was standing on the roof. For a bit I thought that Margaret's internal monologue of 'Please free yourself from me' implied she was getting ready to literally jump off the tower and risk commiting suicide to save Gilthunder from killing Meliodas. Which thankfully did not happen.I just thought that Gilthunder's whole character arc was one of the best parts of the first arc. It wasn't just because it is all logical or whatever, but it's the character of Gilthunder itself that was good. The combination of his past with Meliodas, the cool Knight's Creed, his past with Margaret, and his believable portrayal in the Holy Knight Arc just really captured the fairy tale-esque feel I think Nakaba was going for, but in a way that preserved the coolness that can come out of a shonen. It was also because the motive Hendrickson pretended to have to his followers, of wanting to revive the Demons so the Holy Knights could start a new Holy War with them and in the end win felt like it was believable as something that could manipulate the select few he fully informed of his fake plan. Key things like them not knowing the true strength of the Demons, the existence of the Commandments, etc, just helped make it all believable. Along with the demon blood new generation holy knights which added a power bribe. It was good writing to me.

In retrospect, statements like "The Seven Deadly Sins were formed to defeat the 10C" which got made later on and said as flashbacks may make no sense now and alter that basis of how Hendrickson got his group of followers. But on the other hand, perhaps Merlin only informed the King of the existence of the Commandments and the Holy Knights at large were not told of them. Maybe the Great Holy Knight IE Zaratras knew about it back when the Sins got formed, but it probably didn't go any lower down the hierarchy than that or else the plot wouldn't have made the same sense. I guess it would just mean that Bartra was super confident in his visions even though the Sins seemed powerless compared to the relative power levels Merlin might have told him about the Commandments having. Did Bartra know Merlin was immortal and from the ancient past of the Holy War? That one statement really makes it seem like that. She obviously couldn't say too much, like that Meliodas was a demon, but that part was probably known to the King and would explain that one statement. I feel like that's probably how it was and Nakaba did at least think all those parts through to an extent. Then "Mel had assault mode after Danafor lol" came around and infinitely messed up canon about how Mel works, but oh well.

I really feel like there was nothing missing in the first arc though. The three little plotholes i mentioned in the last post are a problem, but if those were addressed it seems like it would have basically been perfect. Elizabeth's power awakening also really sold the fairy tale sense of grandeur and magic Nakaba was going for and made for a solid conclusion to the battle. It's an arc that works so well in isolation that it could be its own mini story, just with the bad guys losing, and it would all be a good story with nice themes and a good and entertaining finale. That's part of what helps me still be able to enjoy this arc even though later stuff messed with the story so much, the substance that was set up was still really good. I'm glad Nakaba managed to do that part this well.

It is also not just the characters like Gilthunder, Howzer, Guila, Jericho, and also the good portrayal with the Sins that made this very good, but even the civilians were treated as important. The ale town of vanya felt like it mattered, the doctor that tried to poison Meliodas ended up mattering and getting healed by Elizabeth, Veronica was an important character who had a nice arc as a sister of Elizabeth, the Dawn Roars were pretty good side characters, Merlin at this point was fully acceptable and only beginning to show the inconsistencies with her teleport spam battle, and there were just a whole lot of narratives stuck together. Helbram gave infinitely more depth to King in arc 1 than what we got in the holy war arc tbh. Ban and Elaine were better then too as much as i think Ban is a pedo. Diane also had a character arc that was good instead of just being a cheerleader like in the new holy war arc and especially the final arc. Meliodas's past was hinted to in good ways too along with Gowther's mysterious nature, and Gowther of course was also a lot better as a character back then. Heck even Gowther interacted with civilians who ended up mattering to him. This was back when civvies were not forgotten about and even Jericho's brother Gustaf felt important and his death had some impact. Later on Nakaba literally soul-genocided half of the civvies and tried to make it so nobody would care, it was just terrible. But in this arc there was basically a sense that this really was an actual nation where the towns and people mattered and the holy knights were an organization that mattered and cared about one another, along with the Sins being people who mattered to others. Gilthunder being a key example of a Meliodas fanboy. There was a major sense of humanity and community to all of it. Now, the others were all forgotten and it is so sad.

That's pretty much all I can think of for the Holy Knight Conspiracy Arc, there's nothing i really dislike about it and a whole lot to like, so yeah, i'd give it a 9/10. It'd be more like a 9.5/10 if everyone's stories could be resolved within it, like Meliodas and Elizabeth's and etc, but that just wasn't possible given the overarching narrative. It was still really good though.