On September 5, 2026, Kasie and Rex took on pride. Here are the show notes:

Topic: Seven Deadly Sins – Pride

Agenda:

• Quick catch up
• What are the seven deadly sins?
• What is pride?
• How can you use it in your story?

Segment 1

We’ve done the seven deadly sins for the last few summers. It’s a good way to dive deep into character motivation and talk about specific works that engage specific “sins” as catalysts for protagonists and antagonists alike.

This week we take on pride. When we did this back in 2024, we talked about pride being the excessive belief in one’s own abilities (Episode 270). We said pride is a sin because the faithful are meant to believe they do all things through God, not their own capabilities. 

The questions this generated were:

• Why can’t one be proud of one’s own abilities?
• What does the church gain by forcing us to be humble?
• How do others react to the acts that demonstrate pride?
• When we consider the role pride can play for a character — does it alienate others? How much pride is too much?
• Is your character made to feel bad about the amount of pride s/he has or exhibits?
• What about this acceptance of God’s grace? Is there a social equivalent for that?
• We did a whole series on motivation, so I’d like to talk about whether pride is a motivation? If so, is the character aware of it? What kinds of things are we too proud over?

Segment 2

There are dozens of literary examples, Pride seems to be an easy one. But is it?

How about some examples of Pride as a motivating factor in literature (this link)? Pride is often a character trait – think of Mr. Darcy’s snootishness or Lightening McQueen thinking he’s too good for Radiator Springs. But sometimes, Pride can be the source of the character’s actions and ruin:

• House of Sand and Fog
• Death of a Salesman
• A Streetcar Named Desire (Blanch Dubois clinging to her tattered family heritage)
• The Tortoise and the Hare (Aesop’s fable)
• Icarus
• Achilles
• Frankenstein (Victor Frankenstein unwilling to admit the mistake)
• Moby Dick
• Macbeth
• A Good Man is Hard to Find (link)

Segment 3

There are different types of pride, as this link elaborates, and that’s what makes it a great motivator. 

How does the pride manifest? What kinds of behaviors, language, and gestures are associated with pride? From the same link:

• ​​Achieving a significant personal or professional accomplishment
• Receiving recognition or praise from others
• Being part of a successful team or group
• Displaying superior knowledge, skills or abilities
• Overcoming adversity or challenges
• Being associated with a prestigious or respected institution or group
• Having a strong sense of identity or cultural heritage
• Feeling superior to others based on wealth, status or social class

What kinds of conflict can you expect to be inevitable when pride is involved?

Segment 4

When we talked about pride in 2021, (Episode 151) we distinguished between healthy and unhealthy pride. We can make that distinction here.

Some of the likely outcomes for your prideful character include:

• The tragic downfall – unwilling to ever accept their mistake, the character lives with the tragic consequences; should there be a distinction between unwilling – like Frankenstein – and unable to make things right, like Atonement?
• The hard-won redemption – seeing their mistake, the prideful character humbles herself at an effort to earn forgiveness and redemption. Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy each break their own ego to admit they were being foolish and accept the other.
• The empty victory – the character does in fact achieve the goal his pride drove him toward, but it is ultimately meaningless because of what he sacrificed to get it. Jay Gatsby amassed wealth but it didn’t win him Daisy, or the ability to return to their past love affair, so he died alone and no one came to his funeral.

Think of stories like the underdog fighting against all odds to gain something.

Think of stories where a character has a blind spot, their pride distracts them from the real meaning of the experience and they miss something important or significant (It’s a Wonderful Life).