This King Arthur Twist Is UNBELIEVABLE! Four Knights of the Apocalypse Chapter 216 Spoilers!

In the previous Four Knights of the Apocalypse chapter, Merlin and Escanor reveal that they are Gawain’s parents.

Four Knights of the Apocalypse Chapter 216 is titled, “A Secret Revealed”

This chapter has 20 pages.

The cover page features Merlin and Escanor.

The chapter continues where we left off when Gowther asking Merlin if there is a way to fight Chaos, with Merlin saying that she cannot speak here and now as the servants of Camelot could be listening to them.

But Merlin does reveal that this secret could change everything as it has enough power to deal a fatal blow to the primordial deity, Chaos, and singlehandedly eradicate the dimension of Camelot.

However, Gawain dismisses the rude interruption turned important discussion, saying it does not matter as the bigger problem is about why Merlin did not tell Gawain about them.

Merlin said that Gawain initially did not want to hear it.

Gawain asks who Kay was and Merlin said that both she and Escanor had faced circumstances that prevented them from raising Gawain properly.

As his adopted brother, Kay was the first one to notice the changes in Arthur’s behavior and so he approached Merlin, who was holding baby Gawain at the time.

Merlin requests for Kay to raise her daughter since in the future, she will be one of the Four Knights of the Apocalypse destined to “rescue” Arthur.

Merlin remarked that while he was no natural, it was wise to let Kay raise Gawain as he gave her more love than she anticipated.

The reason why Merlin gave up Gawain to someone else is because she needed to be away from this world to protect a “certain secret” but even then, she acknowledges that this is no excuse for being a bad mother.

Balin asks about Escanor, who reveals that he is actually already dead.

The skeletal puppet body was only a mere vessel to hold Escanor’s soul to this world.

Escanor feels bad for sacrificing himself against the Demon King as that left him unable to embrace his daughter but at least he was able to help raise her.

Even if said event was responsible for creating Gawain in the first place.

Merlin explaineed that Escanor burned up his whole life after helping defeat the Demon King and Merlin witnessed Escanor burn from the flames of his own creation.

Escanor’s death left Merlin with a sense of loss she has never experienced before.

She kissed a man who loved her more than she could love him for she was a woman who could not have her love (for Meliodas) reciprocated.

While she did let her lips be burned by Escanor’s flames, Merlin took a bit of Escanor’s burning flesh, preserved it and mixed it with her own.

Here, she broke one of the biggest taboos: creating life itself.

Or specifically, a magical version of IVF (in vitro fertilization)

Gawain was not formed inside Merlin’s womb but was a combination of Escanor and Merlin’s flesh made through a forbidden spell.

This truth is why Merlin chose not to disclose Gawain’s true parentage to her as that could have led to her despair.

But instead, Gawain rejoiced at this discovery as she felt like the most unique being possible.

Which fits her character actually.

Seven Deadly Sins Continues to Fumble Its Gender Discourse

Gawain thinks that because she was essentially an in vitro baby, she was unable to love anyone.

Balin refutes the claim, saying that Gawain is loved by a great many people.

Merlin reveals, however, that the reason why Gawain was only able to love women was because…she placed a curse on her as an infant.

Merlin’s reasoning? Because Merlin did not want Gawain to go through the pain she went through: of falling into a deep pit of misery because of an impossible love, her love for Meliodas.

For Merlin, the solution to stop the curse of love towards the opposite sex…was a love curse towards the same sex.

And within the same page, Merlin casts “Curse Liberation” and frees Gawain from the curse of being forced to love the same sex.

So when Balin comes close to ask if Gawain feels any different, Gawain blushes and finds Balin too close and too musky.

This immediately comes off as insenstive towards the LGBT community.

While this could be more reflective of Merlin’s lack of understanding love, the repeated insistence on heterosexual dynamics and use of queerbaiting reveals how inconsistent and flippant the author is towards the serious matter of sexuality, even in fiction.

It feels like Nakaba is setting up an interesting, divergent romance that he has not done in the original series, only to peddle back in favor of more conservative or louder voices.

An example is the concept of Fairy sexuality and how it involved making Nasiens more feminine.

While it does not necessarily remove Nasiens’ queer identity, of not needing to identify as male or female, it emphasized an aesthetic “necessity” to appeal to the audience’s need of “fulfillment”, at least of the heterosexual or reproductive variety.

Even when Percival’s choice to form a polygamous relation with both Anne nad Nasiens was certainly unique, it lessens the impact of Nasiens’ revolutionary growth, a queer character openly and expressively loving a male protagonist within a shonen series that is not identified or leaning towards boys’ love.

Going back to Merlin’s curse, some fans also argue that the curse does not diminish Gawain’s queerness because the chapter has not denied the possibility of Gawain still being able to love women and that Gawain’s story has always been about being able to find authentic love.

The latter point, however, also feels like an insult to the LGBT experience, as if the curse makes the readers think that being homosexual or queer is a falsehood or a “phase”.

That being said, there are also fans who note how Gawain’s queerness does not detract from the positive qualities of the ship between her and Balin, a seemingly stereotypically stoic male fighter.

At the same time, the ship with her current “butler” Balin is actually quite natural as there is no concept of sexual attraction or objectification but a respect between equals, which is something that is unfortunately less pronounced in the Seven Deadly Sins franchise.

As great as King and Diane and Ban and Elaine are as couples, both Fairy couples have issues, with King and Diane’s egregious but less discussed age gap and Elaine being less of an agent or prominent presence in the story in contrast to the more well-developed rival, Jericho, who audiences are more attached with.

Gawain and Balin are shipped because Gawain has found someone she authentically respects and wants to grow with, a premise that is better than Gawain lusting over an attractive male and vice-versa.

Who is the Arthur in Camelot?

In the middle of these revelations, Escanor asks if Gawain will be able to forgive them, to which she says “no!”

However, Gawain leaps into the arms of her parents, saying that she actually just loves them, saying that if they want her to forgive them, they ought to hold her tight until she says it is okay to let go.

Escanor is emotional, having longed to embrace his daughter with his real body but Gawain says it is okay.

Gawain asks her mother where she is and if there is a way to fight Chaos and Merlin says that she has to come find her and that the key is inside her.

However, Merlin cuts this loving moment short as she has to leave and let the puppet enter on “auto mode” for a while.

Merlin instructs the puppet to return to the ship and commence cleaning.

Merlin senses that someone is finally awake.

The man with long hair asks how long was he asleep for, to which Merlin says that it has only been two years and that he has lost quite a bit of strength.

We see that the man has a mark on his left chest, close to where his heart should be.

The man asks how the fight is doing, to which Merlin says that it is still not looking great.

However, Merlin says that with Percival coming back and the other three Knights becoming stronger, they can overthrow Chaos.

We learn that the emaciated man Merlin is speaking to is none other than her true master, the real King Arthur.

This is quite a turn.

Essentially, the Four Knights of Prophecy have been fighting a fake Arthur.

There are two possibilities:

First is that the current Arthur is possessed by Chaos and Merlin was somehow able to extract Arthur’s soul like she did Escanor, except that Arthur is still alive.

Second and something easier to process is that Arthur was replaced by his own bastard child: Mordred.

Based on current information, the first theory is more likely since it has been established that anyone possessing a fragment of Chaos loses their humanity, with the Four Evils having lost their memories of their loved ones and only focusing on obeying all of King Arthur’s orders.

Furthermore, Chaos needed Arthur’s body specifically and thus would not have survived elsewhere.

This also explains why Chaos Arthur has barely aged a day even though he is 32 years old.

While he is not old and many 30-year-olds are not heavily aged, Arthur still looked barely any different than when he was young, almost Meliodas-like and Meliodas is a demon cursed with immortality.

Or perhaps, somehow Arthur’s physical body was split up by Merlin when the two personalities were forming within Arthur.

On the second possibility, one has to wonder how Mordred would even be able to acquire Chaos.

One possibility is that, like Gawain, he would have been a creation but Merlin would not have done that.

Perhaps Chaos, a near-omnipotent primordial being, would be responsible for such an unusual “virgin birth” or perhaps there is someone akin to Morgause, an aunt, cousin or relative of Arthur’s who had a child with him in the myths and is often merged with Morgan le Fay.

We will have to see soon.

Four Knights of the Apocalypse Chapter 217 is titled, “The Eternal King” and will be released on November 26, 2025.

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