And finally onto our last Horseman, Fury.
Fury was long awaited by Fans when her game released, everyone eager to see the lone woman amongst the Four and who she was to be. Many speculated for a bit that maybe she'd ironically be the levelest one of the group (at least what I saw).
Fury, is in fact, consistently furious and snappy. She is aggressive, if not hostile. She's petulant and snotty. Often she is tactless and rude. She is self centered and holds herself in very high regard, thinking she's the strongest.
She wasn't chosen to kill the Sins because she was the best for it or just the only option to the Council. No, they sent her because she was most susceptible to them which we shall dive into here. We can actually go about this today in list format and discuss the ways in which Fury has been like, or is like, the Deadly Sins themselves.
Starting off with the easiest,
Pride: Fury holds herself in incredibly high regard at the start, believing she should lead the Horsemen. She genuinely thinks she has the raw power and authority to command her brothers, forgetting that the current leader, Death, is far older and far more powerful than her. Death is near indestructible, able to withstand War ramming Chaoseater through him. Meanwhile, the very leader Fury seeks to usurp specifically made an artifact, Nephalem's Respite, to heal her because she kept getting hurt so much. Fury also seems to believe the others would follow her lead, despite there being no evidence that they would. She shows her ass a lot on conversation with humans and Makers, thinking herself above them and insulting them.
Wrath: Fury is aptly named, being consistently enraged, snappy, and aggressive. While War is temperamental and can become utterly enraged, he is typically pretty level headed. Fury, however, loses her cool constantly. She screams at people, threatens them, and is always ready to attack. Its truly not a wonder that Wrath himself likes her, probably seeing a partner as angry as he.
Sloth: Despite her own claims, Fury is ultimately lazy, though its mostly in her quest for power and authority. Until her game, she's actually seemingly done very little to further her own ambition. She's also very easily lulled into nap time by Sloth because, yes, she is tired. But she's not addressing what's made her feel that way. Consistent, sustained anger, hurt and grief over Rampage, loneliness without her brothers, feelings of unworthiness as she kept not reaching her goal of leading... She is tired of it all, and she does just want to rest and let the world move on without her.
Avarice: Fury is greedy, but not for material items. She craves power and authority. She covets specifically the leadership role Death occupies and is eager to claim it, and hold it. She seeks a lot from others in general, upgrades, items of power and use, information... She's very demanding and seeks to almost hoard things for herself to make herself better. However, she is possibly least suspectable to the manifestation of greed, Avarice himself, because he primarily seeks material items.
Lust: Fury surprisingly seems to have the best understanding of what Lust as an entity and concept is. She explains to the Watcher that lust isn't just what humans interpret, that being a concept of seeking physical intimacy, but a more amorphous concept surrounding desire as an entirety. And as she covets power and the position of leader, so too does she long for it. She's almost desperate for it and she desires it so badly, she almost falls for Lust's illusion of her brothers telling her she's the new leader.
Gluttony: Fury is perhaps the least suspectable to Gluttony as a concept, being that the false food is obviously fake to her. She's not looking to gorge herself, or indulge in much of anything, expect maybe power, but she's not a "stuff my face" kinda gal. In fact, she broke Gluttony's illusion pretty quickly, recognizing it as such almost immediately.
Envy: Jealousy is one of Fury's greatest flaws. She is viciously jealous of the power and confidence her brothers have in themselves. She's jealous of Death's authority, of War's strength, and Strife's confident nature. She's trying to be what she isn't and can't be, which is why Envy is the final boss, why Envy is next to her the entire game. Her greatest flaw and struggle is with jealousy.
All these combined, I think its safe to say, Fury isn't actually all that confident in herself, at least not by the end. Truthfully, I don't think she was ever as confident as she painted herself. I think she masked her insecurity behind bravado and rage.
Let's look at her circumstances and who surrounds her.
One, she's the only woman left of the Nephilim. We don't know how women were treated by the men amongst the Nephilim, but I personally think they were treated the same, as a soldier. However, it is possible women were sought out to forcibly create another generation. We don't know for certain. Regardless, being the singular woman amongst her brothers probably isn't a great feeling.
Two, Wrath says that he and the other sins used to call her the dumb one. Now, Fury is as intelligent as her brothers, however she's much more emotionally charged than them, acting on impulse and rage, and she frequently ignores the finer details until its too late. That isn't to say the boys don't also have blind spots or emotional impulses, they clearly do. Death, for example, ditches all other Balance responsibilities to go erase War's alleged crimes because War someone he cares deeply about.
However Fury being specifically called "the dumb one" would be incredibly hurtful and a big blow to Fury's ego. She seems to believe she's the smartest and strongest of the Four, but to have a being she sees as lesser laugh at her and insult her like that would probably hit her exactly where she hurts most. Its possible she doesn't actually believe she's intelligent, or at least she's buried the idea so far it doesn't crop up until its dredged up again by the events of 3.
Three, she's constantly belittling others. Calling Strife "the delicate one", insulting how Death smells, insulting humans and Ulthane to their faces, treating Vulgrim like crap (not that he's unused to that from the Four, which really, they need to fix lol), and she belittles Usiel for acting to protect his angels. She's frequently using these to draw reaction, or to go " but I'm not like that".
Truthfully, I don't think its until her fight with Lust that she starts to examine herself and her situation. And I think the illusion of her brothers shook her a bit.
For her, leadership is a big goal, but something about the illusion reveals a bit more about her.
For context, in this illusion, Lust is suddenly shot by Strife. The three men approach their sister and explain that they were sent to aid her, but with her as newly appointed leader, so sayeth the Council. What breaks this illusion for her? Her brothers kneeling before her.
Her reaction to this is visceral. Pure rage. Which anger would be understandable at being tricked, but she is righteously pissed about the kneeling. The anger around this is peculiar because until that point, Fury has expressed no care for them, but it seems she cares a lot for her brothers and how they are represented.
Now, I know many will likely argue that her anger is just over being tricked and she's telling Lust off with, "You shouldn't have made them kneel", as if its passive aggressive criticism of his illusion. I would like to argue though, that when Fury has seen through illusions other times (Gluttony's for example), she's smug and will make a comment like that with a lot of smugness. This was pure anger.
This anger tells me that she hasn't truly seen her brothers as subservient and that she actually respects them more than she lets on, and she loathes their depiction as submissive to her will. I also believe this shows she doesn't necessarily want to lead. She just wants to prove herself as better than what others have believed her to be in the past.
(Plus, her Brothers kneeling being the sign it was an illusion is probably linked to the fact that she, War, and Strife probably dont kneel to Death. While Death's the leader, its honestly probably more for group missions or ceremony's sake to them.)
Onto the symbolism in her design! Once more, we may be diving a bit into Biblical symbolism as we did with War.
Firstly, the covers on her ears.
These could very well be linked to a practical desire to protect her ears from the elements, especially when using magic, which ties itself into her hair seamlessly. Symbolically, it shows an unwillingness to listen to others; opinions or reason from others don't go into her ears because she's unwilling to hear anything but what she wants to.
The eye over heart is another interesting design choice. Biblically speaking, we may look to Matthew 20:1-15. In short, "Matthew 20:1-15 is a parable in which a typical Evil Eye accusation is employed to denounce envy as incompatible with life in the kingdom of heaven and detrimental to the community's well-being."(quote from journals.sagepub.com).
This is particularly interesting as Envy is the primary antagonist in Darksiders 3, and once Fury learns the truth and understands clearly the reality, she goes after the embodiment of Envy and relinquishes her own jealousy.
The placement of the eye is also over her heart, symbolically saying she views her situation and life with her heart/emotions over using her head, especially when you consider her own eyes are solid white in color without clear pupils. This gives the impression of her thinking with her heart over her head, thus contributing to her being blind to anything requiring stronger analysis.
By the end of her game, Fury has changed her view on many things. She understands the Council is corrupt, War innocent, humanity must be preserved, and that she's not exactly all that and a bag of chip. She's a bit softer and trying to be better than she was.
Tl;Dr: Fury both a temperamental child and a confident woman, though her confidence boarders on cockiness and her anger outbursts get her into deeper shit than necessary, but she learns better by the end.
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