History Headscratchers / SE7EN

* From above point, considering [[spoiler:sloth isn't dead yet,]] isn't his work still kinda incomplete?

** The two victims are [[spoiler:John Doe]] (envy) and [[spoiler:David Mills]] (wrath). It's all built on the penal system in use during Dante's lifetime. [[spoiler:A man sentenced to death could either be executed or his wife and children could be. The loss of his entire family was considered equal to taking his life.]] That is exactly what Doe does to the wrath victim, only he kind of lucked out on the part [[spoiler:about the child.]] This is all foreshadowed earlier when he says [[spoiler:to Miller "what life I will allow you to have".]]

** Also, those would not be the only two killings that don't fit the supposed pattern: for lust, Doe forces a john to kill a prostitute by raping her with some sort of strap-on dagger-dildo. It's presumably not the prostitute who was committing the sin of lust, however, but the john. So it's really a pattern of four, out of seven, in which Doe kills the sinner in a manner appropriate to the sin, and three in which Doe engineers the killing of someone else, i.e., the prostitute, Tracy Mills, and himself, as a victim of the sin in question. So really, there are two patterns.

** Also, [[spoiler: Mills]] would probably not [[spoiler: get the death penalty]]. While he did [[spoiler:murder a unarmed, handcuffed suspect]], the dude was [[spoiler: a serial killer]] who had just [[spoiler:killed Mills' wife and shipped her dismembered head to him in a box]]. Under the circumstances, "extreme emotional disturbance" would be open-and-shut here, [[spoiler: which means decades in a prison and/or mental institution]], but not [[spoiler:death]]. Unless, of course, [[spoiler: Doe had meant to "kill" Mills' spirit, but maybe not his actual body. Then he succeeded without question]].

* Every time I see the title written out as "SE7EN," I always want to say "SESEVENEN" instead. Am I the only one?
** I will now
*** I do that whenever a movie uses a number in the title. like DriveThreeEr
*** I'm not sure why, but i say it as a "z' sound. Sezen. Not sure why they needed the title like it anyway?
** It doesn't even look remotely like a 'V' (unless turned 90 degrees and we all know that tortured logic [[DeathNote doesn't count]]). This has always really, really bugged me because it has absolutely no point in being there. Not even the slim one of sort-of resembling the letter it's replacing.

* I would have like this movie better, if they didn't try to make it like the killer is supposedly a genius. I know being insane doesn't make you stupid, but his motivation isn't too philosophical or interesting . It is type of social commentary that a child could invent. I seen super-villains with deeper motivations.
** He isn't a genius, as his plan wasn't foolproof (there are so many places where it could have gone wrong, particularly when we consider the Pride death), plus a lot of his actions don't add up to "genius" even if you look at it from the same perspective as him (the victim of Lust is a prostitute? Really, you think most sex workers do their jobs out of lust? Wouldn't a John, a sex offender, a child molester been more appropriate? And you had to get a special strap-on custom-made for the job, you couldn't have had the guy bladerape her to death without a fancy contraption that only serves the purpose of adding some twisted style?). The "logic" behind it is not foolproof and clearly shows the biases he had such as misogyny and barely-concealed excitement at making the jobs extra grisly. The fact that Mills's actions seem to "prove him right" doesn't mean he's a genius, it just showed he was rather good at manipulating him into thinking that taking revenge had symbolic significance, and that he was the one at fault. Killers who believe their actions are for the Greater Good are pretty good at doing that even if objectively it isn't true. You don't have to take the movie's most obvious-seeming message. Besides crazy missionary serial killers are a fairly common type, though they are not usually as organized as John Doe.
*** I actually meant that the movie had to get the calm, experienced cop to describe the killer as a "genius" while the rash, green cop had to dismiss the killer as simply insane.
**** Somerset wasn't talking about his motivations, he was talking about how difficult it would be to catch him because he's so organized and meticulous, and because he seems to have put a great deal of thought into his crimes and choice of victims (even if he wasn't especially imaginative in those thoughts and choices). Mill's didn't just dismiss him as insane, he thought he was a complete wacko CloudCuckoolander who didn't have a semblance of normalcy about him. As for the depth of motivation thats mostly meant to come from the CrapsackWorld, since Doe is meant to be right about what a horrible place he's living in, even if he exagerrates and doesn't realise that he's the worst thing in it.

** He isn't a genius, as his plan wasn't foolproof (there are so many places where it could have gone wrong, particularly when we consider the Pride death), plus a lot of his actions don't add up to "genius" even if you look at it from the same perspective as him (the victim of Lust is a prostitute? Really, you think most sex workers do their jobs out of lust? Wouldn't a John, a sex offender, a child molester been more appropriate? And you had to get a special strap-on custom-made for the job, you couldn't have had the guy bladerape her to death without a fancy contraption that only serves the purpose of adding some twisted style?). The "logic" behind it is not foolproof and clearly shows the biases he had such as misogyny and barely-concealed excitement at making the jobs extra grisly. The fact that Mills's actions seem to "prove him right" doesn't mean he's a genius, it just showed he was rather good at manipulating him into thinking that taking revenge had symbolic significance, and that he was the one at fault. Killers who believe their actions are for the Greater Good are pretty good at doing that even if objectively it isn't true. You don't have to take the movie's most obvious-seeming message. Besides crazy missionary serial killers are a fairly common tyoe, though they are not usually as organized as John Doe.

** The wife isn't killed for any sin, just a victim of [[spoiler: Doe's envy]], just to make sure no one is hanging on to the idea that Doe is virtuous in his killings.

** The last two sins are Envy and Wrath, they don't have to be deaths, as seen with sloth, so they are [[spoiler: Doe and Mills]] respectively.

** It doesn't even look remotely like a 'V' (unless turned 90 degrees and we all know that tortured logic doesn't count). This has always really, really bugged me because it has absolutely no point in being there. Not even the slim one of sort-of resembling the letter it's replacing.

** The last two sins are Envy and Wrath, they don't have to be deaths, as seen with sloth, so they are Doe and Mills respectively

* The last two deaths don't fit in with the pattern of the others. In the first five, they were killed by an overabundance of their sins (although Greed is a little shaky in that regard.) If we count [[spoiler: Mills' wife]] to be the sixth death, then she didn't die because she was envious. She died because someone was envious for her. That would be like saying that the victim of gluttony would be someone getting eaten to death. The same goes for [[spoiler:John Doe.]] If he is the victim of wrath, he didn't die because he was wrathful, he died because he made someone else mad. This is solved somewhat if you consider [[spoiler: John Doe]] the sixth death, and [[spoiler: Mills]] the seventh death (assuming he dies from the death penalty), but it's still a leap.

*** I actually meant that the movie had to get the calm, experienced cop to describe the killer as a "genius" while the rash, green cop had to dismiss the killer as simply insane.

*** I actually meant that the movie had to get the calm, experienced cop to describe the killer as "genius" while the rash, green cop had to dismiss the killer as simply insane.

** He isn't a genius, as his plan wasn't foolproof (there are so many places where it could have gone wrong, particularly when we consider the Pride death), plus a lot of his actions don't add up to "genius" even if you look at it from the same perspective as him (the victim of Lust is a prostitute? Really, you think most sex workers do their jobs out of lust? Wouldn't a John, a sex offender, a child molester been more appropriate? And you had to get a special strap-on custom-made for the job, you couldn't have had the guy bladerape her to death without a fancy contraption that only serves the purpose of adding some twisted style?). The "logic" behind it is not foolproof and clearly shows the biases he had such as misogyny and barely-concealed excitement at making the jobs extra grisly. The fact that Mills's actions seem to "prove him right" doesn't mean he's a genius, it just showed he was rather good at manipulating him into thinking that taking revenge had symbolic significance, and that he was the one at fault. Killers who believe their actions are for the Greater Good are pretty good at doing that even if objectively it isn't true. You don't have to take the movie's most obvious-seeming message. Besides crazy missionary serial killers are a fairly common tyoe, though they are not usually as organized as John Doe.

* I would have like this movie better, if they didn't try to make it like the killer is supposedly a genius. I know being insane doesn't make you stupid, but his motivation isn't too philosophical or interesting . It is type of social commentary that a child could invent. I seen super-villains with deeper motivations.

** Drug dealers might not be "lazy" so to speak, but they contribute to a lifestyle that encourages Sloth for everyone else. Also, as Topher Grace stated in Traffic, "You can go out on the street and make five-hundred dollars in two hours, come back and do whatever you want to do with the rest of your day." Given how fast money can be made through their "trade" drug dealers, especially very well connected middle-men, generally let their clients seek them out. We never got any indication that the victim was particularly wrathful or any greedier than any of the other drug dealers in the city, pederasty notwithstanding, but Doe more than likely chose him because of his connection to the Greed victim (a city attorney who got him absolved of said pederasty in court).

* The deadly sin of Sloth generally means being a lazy bastard who couldn't get off his ass to save his life. Yet, the chosen victim for that sin was apparently a drug dealer and child rapist. Wouldn't that make him more guilty of Wrath, or possibly Greed?

*** I do that whenever a movie uses a number in the title. like DriveThreeEr