Esdeath

"Panicking leads to an early grave."

- Esdeath "If you will never be mine, I'll at least give you death by my own hands. I won't let anyone else touch you. Tatsumi of Night Raid... you will die."

- Esdeath to Tatsumi. "I won't let anything harm you, I won't take any other lovers, I consider you my only man, I won't let you feel lonely."

- Esdeath

General Esdeath (simply known as Esdeath) is one of the main antagonists in the manga and anime series Akame Ga Kill!. She is a high-ranking general of the Empire, she is also one of the powerful generals of the Empire due her Teigu. Esdeath was responsible for the death of millions of people in the north of the country, being responsible for several conflicts, wars and deaths in the north of the country on account of the rebellion against the Empire. She is the villain with the largest number of horrible atrocities in Akame Ga Kill!, after Prime Minister Honest himself. She is also the leader of the Jaegers.

She is voiced by Satomi Akesaka in the Japanese version of the anime, and Christine Auten in the English version of the anime.

Appearance
Esdeath was a young woman with long light blue hair, and dark blue eyes, she wore a General's apparel with long sleeves, a blue scarf on her neck, and high-heeled boots. She also has a tattoo on her chest, which is the sign of her Teigu.

In the anime, Esdeath was shown to have a porcelain color skin (most likely due to the cold climate of her home village). Along with that, her breasts were exaggeratedly bigger than her manga's counterpart.

Personality
Esdeath was a sadistic and manipulative woman who lacks empathy for people of whom she deems weak, since she lives by her father's philosophy ("The strong survive and the weak die"). She enjoys putting her enemies through great pain, both physically and emotionally. She has no qualms about killing innocent people to get what she wants, and rationalizes her behavior with her father's old creed. Esdeath is known to treat her subordinates well, letting them do as they please, which in turn inspires their intense loyalty and devotion; this makes her followers the strongest offensive force of the Empire. To her credit, Esdeath has demonstrated genuine care for her subordinates - the Three Beasts and Jaegers in particular - and unhesitatingly authorized them to kill Tatsumi should he ever endanger their lives.

Esdeath loves to fight and holds special respect for strong opponents, which she shows when she openly recognizes Susanoo as a warrior rather than a simple Teigu. Her love of battle has occasionally inspired her to take actions that would incite more hatred against the empire, in the hopes of being able to put down more rebellions. She has even stated that should the empire fall, she would simply start a war herself to satisfy her need for bloodshed.

Despite her reputation, Esdeath is greatly charismatic and seductive, able to inspire many to fight for her. Even Run, who expected her to be a scumbag, softened his stance on her, despite his otherwise apprehension towards her sadism.

Although she is unabashedly bloodthirsty and heartless, she keeps it from from dominating her judgment. If she sees that the battle is too much for her soldiers, she orders a retreat and doesn't risk heavy losses. While she will torture subordinates who fail, she can be forgiving to failed servitors, provided that they aren't complete failures, and gives them the benefit of the doubt if the failure wasn't their fault. However, during the final battle against the Revolutionary Army and the remaining Night Raid members, it becomes clear that beneath that facade of a charismatic military officer is a person of pure evil and bloodlust. This is proven when she uses her real trump card to cover the Empire in a Russian Winter. Najenda notes that such a technique puts Esdeath's subordinates, as well as their families, at risk. Her response of not caring with a cold smile on her face, and once again rationalizing it with her belief of social darwinism, shows her cruelty and depravity.

Interestingly, in spite of this pure monstrous behavior, prior to the final battle, Esdeath spoke of dedicating the battle in the fallen Jaegers group's memory- even more significant with her initial casual dismal upon Seryu ''s demise, internally admitted to missing them greatly and envisions the entire group in her memory. This demonstrates that while she would put her men and their families at risk, she does fondly recall those who were more significant than a lackey and having them valued in high regard; especially, in comparison to  Liver, Nyau and Daidara. And least, shows some of it was genuine.

Esdeath loves to fight and showed great respect for strong opponents, she respects openly Susanoo as a warrior and not a simple Teigu or a person. Her love for battle occasionally inspired to take actions that incite more hatred against the Empire, hoping to be able to put more rebellions, so she could fight more opponents.

Powers and Abilities
Esdeath is considered the strongest soldier in the Empire's army and the strongest in the series, being defeated by only Akame. She possesses a powerful Imperial Arm called the Demon Manifestation - Demon's Extract, which allows her to manipulate ice and create ice from nothing. She uses it to create icicles, freeze people to death and more. She has been able to freeze an entire lake within moments with her ability. Her trump card allows her to freeze time.

Esdeath usually carries a long rapier that she wields with her into combat. She has shown herself to be quite adept with this weapon even without having to resort to her Teigu. She is shown to be a highly skilled hand-to-hand combatant as well, possessing great physical strength, such as when she sent Tatsumi crashing to the ground in one kick, or when she slammed Seryu through the ground in their first meeting. She was also able to slam Suzuka into a wall with relatively little effort.

She also has a strong sixth sense, being able to sense killing intent even at long distances. She was perfectly able to sense that someone was spying on her. Also, her sense of smell is strong as she confirmed that it was Tatsumi after checking his scent when she reunited with him on top of Mt. Fake from one sniff.

Esdeath has an extensive knowledge of human physiology due to having been a torturer for a long time; as seen when she dissected the body of Chelsea after her death looking for anything telling. Overall, she is quite intelligent and invents new torture methods and moves, such as her trump cards Mahapadma and Blizzard Command-in-Chief.

Trivia

 * Esdeath is a play on the phrase "S" desu, which means "I am an S(sadist)".
 * She has a small book that she uses to draw Tatsumi.
 * Her army has its own symbol: a cross.
 * Esdeath also has a pet dragon she flies around on.
 * Esdeath's English voice actor, Christine Auten, also voices Karasuba, who, like Esdeath, is a composed, extremely powerful warrior woman who is very sadistic and believes only the strong survive.
 * Esdeath represents the type of villain more commonly associated with the early ages of cinema and animation, in that she is evil purely for the sake of being evil, and thoroughly enjoys it. In the modern era, many central villains possess some form of tragic backstory, which influenced them and turned them into villains. These people fit into several categories: they seek revenge for some previous wrongdoing, joined the bad guys simply because they were tempted by the promises of power and money, or are essentially good moral people that have been led astray and are fighting for the wrong side. Esdeath, by contrast, represents none of these. Whilst the loss of her father, and taking of a dangerous Teigu undoubtedly influenced her, she was shown to be sadistic and amoral even before these and following the collapse of the empire, noted that she would simply start another war in order to take part in the ensuing chaos that followed. Tatsumi and Najenda noting that if either of the previous circumstances had influenced her, then her actions may have been at least understandable. Both realized, however, that Esdeath was a monster to her very core and she remained so right up until her dying moment.
 * Esdeath also deviates from most other villains in that she is shown to actually care about the people under her command, treating them with affection and respect, whilst still remaining ruthless and cruel towards her enemies. She also does not manipulate the feelings of a hero for her own benefit, since her feelings for Tatsumi as stressed on multiple occasions were genuine.
 * Esdeath's anime portrayal was generally consistent to her manga counterpart. As noted, however, certain aspects of the manga were cut from the anime portrayal, so she never met Wild Hunt, nor duelled Leone. In fact, most of Esdeaths storylines were actually featured and the only noticeable deviation was the manner of Esdeath's death. Just like in the manga, she battled and was eventually bested by Akame, who fatally stabbed her with Murasame. Accepting that her death was inevitable Esdeath calmly approached Tatsumi's corpse (in the anime Tatsumi did not survive his battle with the Emperor). Cradling his lifeless body to her, Esdeath expressed her undying love for him one last time, then proceeded to freeze both of them, before obliterating her bodies. Wave and Run later reflected that Esdeath's love for Tatsumi was genuine and that even in the afterlife, she was probably still chasing after him, with Tatsumi running in the opposite direction.  In the manga, her death is more pathetic, as Tatsumi is still alive, albeit forever transformed into a dragon, and Esdeath dies bemoaning the fact that she can never have him.

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