History Headscratchers / SE7EN

*** Odd that this is an argument, considering that we have tons of well known cases of american police inflicting deadly force on suspects (and sometimes even non-suspects) that were already subdued, with little to no justification, in public view with many witnesses and video evidence, and they get away with it with barely a slap in the wrist. At worst Mills is going to lose his job, but no, the man is not seeing prision walls.

* At the end of the movie, we learn that John Doe has killed Mills' wife and unborn child, and goads Mills into killing him, thereby becoming Wrath. Two problems:

*** The question being, if he secretly wanted to be Wrath (which would make sense considering his actions), then Envy is still missing since he had only one sin per person up til this point. One could argue, on the other hand, if Doe is the Wrath victim, that Tracy is therefore the Envy victim.
*** Tracy's death created, in John Doe's sick mind, a closed loop. He committed the sin of Envy by killing her, an innocent that he envied the normal life of. Mills then committed the sin of Wrath by killing Doe, forcing him to pay the fatal price for Envy. And now Mills' family is dead and life wrecked, making him pay for the sin of Wrath ''for the rest of his life.''

** This is possibly a holdover from a previous draft - the one that was intended to be used before Fincher got wind of the darker ending - where Tracy wasn't the woman who was killed and John Doe just murdered another woman to make Mills think it was her. So in that event, the wrath would be killing a man in cold blood and potentially ruining his career without fact checking first.

** 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).

** I thought a drug-dealer was perfect as example of sloth, as selling drugs is not a real job and requires very little effort in exchange for a lot of money. Though be a child molester will be more connected to Lust.

*** The movie doesn't establish the victim's age, just says is a minor, she could be 17 years and 11 months old for that matter, probably the reason why the script takes the effort in calling him a pederast (someone into teens) instead of a pedophile (someone into prepubescent children), considering that he was a drug dealer, most likely the victim was a teenage girl client whether he tried to forced her sexually or to sell drugs in exchange for sex (which albeit consensual is still statutory rape), if the girl is around 15, 16 or 17 is still a minor but he would hardly be considered a pedophile even for someone like John Doe, thus his main crime is still sloth.

* 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 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 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 John Doe the sixth death, and Mills the seventh death (assuming he dies from the death penalty), but it's still a leap.

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

*** Additionally, considering how well-liked Mills was by Somerset and the Chief, along with the massive guilt the rest of the force would feel for being complacent in selling Mills' address to Doe, there's a significant chance he wouldn't even be charged. And if his conscience compelled him to serve time for killing an unarmed prisoner, he'd be treated like royalty by the guards and given premiere mental health treatment.

*** It's been stated the victim of Lust is the prostitute, although shouldn't the victim of Pride be more accurately considered as victim of vanity?
*** Is that's the case that doesn't makes sense. Prostitutes do not have lust, they (generally) do not have sex out of sexual placer, but for money, she would be Greed, not Lust. She's a provoker of the sin but not the sinner.

** The two final victims are John Doe (Envy) and David Mills (Wrath). It's all built on the penal system in use during Dante's lifetime. 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 about the child. This is all foreshadowed earlier when he says to Mills "what life I will allow you to have".

* From above points, considering Sloth isn't dead yet, isn't his work still kinda incomplete?
** So sensitive if you shine a flashlight into the man's eyes he'll go into shock? For all intents and purposes he is dead.
** He didn't kill the Pride victim either (she kills herself); if she chose to call for help would have survived, but disfigured for life. Similarly, depending on your interpretation, the prostitute wasn't guilty of Lust: thus her death was more of a way to punish the client who was the sinner- similarly how Mills does not die, but his life is ruined. So technically for John Doe the death of the sinner is not always the goal, but messing up their life and mind forever.

** Bedsores can develop extremely quickly, within a couple of days. Imagine the pain that he would have been in after being in the same position for a whole year. He's also wasting away, only fed enough to be barely kept alive, is getting no sunlight at all and it's not as if he'd be able to get up to go to the toilet so he's likely lying in his own waste as well. I'd think slowly rotting on a bed for a year being unable to move would definitely mess up your mental state. In addition to this, the only person he sees for a year is an insane madman. At that point, he's biting off his own tongue in an effort to commit suicide.
** RealityIsUnrealistic: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZPuLJYPLl0 There have in fact been voluntary human experiments (including some offered by NASA) where people are paid to lie in a bed for a considerable length of time, usually a period of up to a few months, wearing special suits for using the bathroom and being fed by assistants. Within a few ''weeks'' [[BodyHorror you will lose much of your blood volume, your muscles will atrophy (and your body will ''feed'' off your muscles if you don't use them enough), your spine will contort and you will suffer physical pain from staying in one position for a considerable length of time, not to mention the psychological harm- anxiety, depression, irritability, panic attacks, feelings of intense loneliness and isolation, hallucinations, paranoia, time distortions and psychotic breaks, and still other symptoms. And most of these experiments are performed on young, fit and healthy people who have to pass intensive physical exams just to make sure they are hale and hearty enough to endure the test. Now imagine you are just Average Joe Drug Dealer, you are being held hostage in this position against your will, your only company is an insane KnightTemplar who is doing this specifically to torture you, and you are in this position for '''a whole year'''. Biting his own tongue was probably something he did in the first few ''days'' of his confinement- because otherwise, he literally would not have had the strength to even ''attempt'' such an act.

*** The scene with him in the hospital has the doctor explaining the state his mind's in.

*** He said he went after sinners he never said that he '''only''' went after sinners. He didn't go after people like the sellers or the clients because he was simply trying to make an example of the Gluttony and Greed victims, not eradicate all bad people. But that doesn't mean he won't kill innocent people to make his point either- the Lust victim arguably wasn't the prostitute, for instance, but the client who hired her, plus he threatened to kill said client AND he shot at Somerset and Mills, and will kill anyone who gets in his way. Besides, he specifically says that he himself is guilty of Envy and needs to be punished for it (in order to turn Mills into Wrath), so he murdered an innocent person for the sake of murdering an innocent person- because it's pretty obvious that he doesn't think murdering "guilty" people is sufficient to make him a sinner. Besides, he wasn't REALLY guilty of Envy- he'd just decided that the ''coup de gras'' of his EvilPlan will be to make Mills into Wrath, and since he has one sin left, the most straightforward way of achieving that is just to pretend that he is Envious of Mills and thats why he killed her- when really, he just needed a flimsy excuse to involve her (and thus Mills) in his twisted story.

** Envy is distinct from jealousy, which is simply wanting what other people have. Envy is being willing to ruin other people for having the things you don't and want. So to commit envy, John Doe had to kill Tracy.

* Frankly, John Doe should have been pride. Go back to Milton, the belief that one who is not god has the ability to make judgements in his name is the ultimate example of Pride, which is suppose to be the greatest of the sins. After all, Satan himself is associated with it. John never shows any hint of envy, in fact other than pride and disgust, he shows very little emotion. Envy should have been Sommerset, who clearly is somewhat jealous of Mill's loving relationship.

*** None of his other victims (except Wrath and maybe gluttony, who could have his tongue cut out) probably values their sins more than their life. Again, diagnosed narcissism or getting a lot of plastic surgery seems proof of pride enough to me.

* There's something that bugs me about the time frame. So John Doe goes to Mills' house, rapes his wife, kills her, cuts her head off, arranges for the head to be delivered at a specific time and location, and then goes to the police. He has time to do all that before he arrives at the police station early in the morning schedule, and he's lucky enough to be processed and have his lawyer called, who arrives just immediately... really? Doesn't booking a suspect, interrogating him and letting him talk to his lawyer normally take several hours? And in all that time, Mills at no point calls his home just to say "hello" to his wife or "Hey, honey, guess what? We caught him! I'm so happy!". Just one phone call from Mills to see how's the dogs are doing, or what's for dinner and Doe's plan would've failed.

* There seems to be an implication that Mills will go to prison for his murder. Is that really a founded worry? It feels like any half-decent lawyer would be able to get the charges dropped. After all he killed someone who just admitted to his face that he raped and killed his wife and child, and who had also killed several other people. Who would be trying to get Mills imprisoned for that?

** Mills will very likely not go to prison because what he did was a clear-cut case of temporary insanity. It would be difficult for prosecutors to get a conviction for Mills given the circumstances. His career as a cop however ''would'' be over with because of what he did.

* Why is John Doe checking out books at the library rather than simply buying them? His apartment is filled with all sorts of stuff that he's been using to conceive, plan, and carry out his "work." Doe bases his whole philosophy on his interpretation of these books, yet he's not willing to commit to purchasing them so he can reference them at his leisure? He's content to to simply send them back to the library when they're due?

*** If Somerset testified truthfully about the event, Mills wouldn't get off on temporary insanity. Somerset warned Mills about the wrongness of killing Doe, and Mills clearly understands what he's saying and is conflicted about the sadistic choice presented to him. When he shoots Doe, he knows what he's doing is wrong and simply can't help himself. Somerset seems like an honorable person, but the blue code of silence is a real thing, so who knows whether he'd be forthcoming on the stand.

*** Additionally, considering how well-liked Mills was by Somerset and the Chief, along with the massive guilt the rest of the force would feel for being complacent in selling Mills' address to Doe, there's a significant chance he wouldn't even be charged. And if his conscience compelled him to serve time for killing unarmed prisoner, he'd be treated like royalty by the guards and given frequent mental health treatment.

*** Additionally, considering how well-liked Mills was by Somerset and the Chief, along the massive guilt the rest of the force would feel for being complacent in selling Mills' address to Doe, there's a significant chance he wouldn't even be charged. And if his conscience compelled him to serve time for killing unarmed prisoner, he'd be treated like royalty by the guards and given frequent mental health treatment.

*** Even if Mills had managed to restrain himself, Doe could have probably rationalized by saying he technically took two lives when he killed a pregnant woman, and he succeeded in destroying Mills' family regardless, so he would likely have been happy enough.

* Why is John Doe checking out books at the library rather than simply buying them? His apartment is filled with all sorts of stuff that he's been using to conceive, plan, and carry out his "work." Doe bases his whole philosophy on his interpretation of these books, yet he's not willing to commit to purchasing them so he can reference them at his leisure? He's content to to simply send them back to the library when they're due?

*** If Somerset testified truthfully about the event, Mills wouldn't get off on temporary insanity. Somerset warned Mills about the wrongness of killing Doe, and Mills clearly understands what he's saying and is conflicted about the sadistic choice presented to him. When he shoots Doe, he knows what he's doing is wrong and simply can't help himself. Somerset seems like an honorable person, but the blue code of silence is a real thing.

** Mills will very likely not go to prison because what he did was a clear-cut case of temporary insanity. It would be difficult for prosecutors to get a conviction for Mills given the circumstances. His career as a cop however ''would'' be over with because of what he did.

* At the end of the movie, we learn that [[spoiler: John Doe has killed Mills' wife and unborn child,]] and goads [[spoiler: Mills]] into killing him, thereby becoming Wrath. Two problems:
** [[spoiler: Mills]] wasn't particularly wrathful before he killed John Doe. So if it weren't for Doe, he never would have committed the sin in the first place. Isn't that sort of unfair? He punished [[spoiler: Mills]] before he'd even done anything wrong.
*** He was wrathful before, not to the point of murder, but he was angry and impulsive throughout. One establishing moment was when [[spoiler: John Doe shows up at a crime scene disguised as a photographer, and Mills basically threatens to beat the hell out of him.]]
*** [[spoiler: This may be when John chose Mills as his Wrath victim. In the ending scene Doe tells Mills how disturbingly easy it was for a man of the press to purchase information from the men in his precinct. This implies Doe went to the police station specifically to purchase information about Mills.]]

* 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.
** 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.
** 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.
** Also, [[spoiler: Mills]] would probably not [[spoiler: get the death penalty]]. While he did [[spoiler:murder an unarmed, handcuffed suspect]], the dude was [[spoiler: a serial killer]] who had just [[spoiler:killed Mills' wife - and her unborn child, which Mills didn't know about until Doe told him - 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]].
*** The novelization establishes that [[spoiler: Mills won't get the death penalty, and he'll likely not get the maximum jail time possible for killing Doe because of the circumstances, but he'll definitely serve time]].
*** The maximum sentence for voluntary manslaughter is generally 10 years. Considering that he was elaborately manipulated into killing, that the victim is a [[spoiler:serial killer]] without any surviving friends or family to testify, and that judges and juries are generally sympathetic to [[spoiler:police officers]], [[spoiler:Mills]] would get at most three years in prison.

** The two final 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 Mills "what life I will allow you to have".]]

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

** He didn't kill the Pride victim either (she kills herself); if she chose to call for help would have survived, but disfigured for life. Similarly, depending on your interpretation, the prostitute wasn't guilty of Lust: thus her death was more of a way to punish the client who was the sinner- similarly how [[spoiler:Mills]] does not die, but his life is ruined. So technically for John Doe the death of the sinner is not always the goal, but messing up their life and mind forever.

* While the Gluttony victim was certainly guilty of his sin, he did not, to our knowledge, actually harm anyone or commit any crimes. By most modern definitions, that would mean he is innocent. [[spoiler:So why do Mills and Somerset appear to agree with the serial killer about his lack of innocence?]]

** RealityIsUnrealistic: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZPuLJYPLl0 There have in fact been voluntary human experiments]] (including some offered by NASA) where people are paid to lie in a bed for a considerable length of time, usually a period of up to a few months, wearing special suits for using the bathroom and being fed by assistants. Within a few ''weeks'' [[BodyHorror you will lose much of your blood volume, your muscles will atrophy (and your body will ''feed'' off your muscles if you don't use them enough), your spine will contort and you will suffer physical pain from staying in one position for a considerable length of time]], not to mention the psychological harm- anxiety, depression, irritability, panic attacks, feelings of intense loneliness and isolation, hallucinations, paranoia, time distortions and psychotic breaks, and still other symptoms. And most of these experiments are performed on young, fit and healthy people who have to pass intensive physical exams just to make sure they are hale and hearty enough to endure the test. Now imagine you are just Average Joe Drug Dealer, you are being held hostage in this position against your will, your only company is an insane KnightTemplar who is doing this specifically to torture you, and you are in this position for '''a whole year'''. Biting his own tongue was probably something he did in the first few ''days'' of his confinement- because otherwise, he literally would not have had the strength to even ''attempt'' such an act.

* There's one thing I've never understood about Doe's motivation for [[spoiler: killing Tracy]]. His MotiveRant reveals that he only killed people who were, in his mind, guilty of committing a deadly sin. Doe even goes so far as to attack Somerset and Mills for calling his victims "innocent," suggesting that he only wanted to kill people who had actually done something wrong. So how does he justify [[spoiler: killing a young woman who's totally blameless?]] It's suggested that he did it because [[spoiler: she]] made him feel envious, but that's not [[spoiler: her]] fault; it seems analogous to killing a rich man because you want what he has. What's Doe's reasoning behind this particular murder?

** Thank you for this answer! But I don't think I worded my question clearly enough. If Doe did think that [[spoiler: Tracy]] was innocent, why did he kill her? In his speech in the car, he makes it clear that he only went after people who had actually ''committed'' deadly sins, not ''inspired'' them--he didn't, for instance, attack the people who sold the Gluttony victim food, or the Greed victim's clients. Doe's clearly a misanthrope who hates the world, but he doesn't really seem to have a mentality, either, nor does he seem like an AxCrazy psychopath (his murders were all carefully planned and justified in his own head). So I still can't figure out how [[spoiler: Tracy's]] murder fits into his plan.

** [[spoiler:Tracy]] is killed because [[spoiler:she]] is the ''wrath'' victim. Back in Dante's day [[spoiler:if a man was sentenced to death he could be allowed to live if his wife and children were killed in his place - thus taking away his reason/will to live. Doe kills Tracy (and the unborn baby but that was a fluke on his part) in place of David, making David the one guilty of wrath and the loss of Tracy and the child his punishment.]]
** The point is that [[spoiler:Doe is Envy. He killed a perfectly innocent woman as a result of his envy. He never once attempted to say he was any different. So obviously, in his mind, he would deserve to die.]]

* [[spoiler:Why did only the Pride victim get a choice in regards to her sin? Live, but be disfigured. I get that beauty is something one's born with, so Doe couldn't justify killing just any pretty person to himself, but why not just kill anyone who got a lot of plastic surgery, or was diagnosed with narcissism?]]

* There's something that bugs me about the time frame. So John Doe goes to [[spoiler:Mills' house, rapes his wife, kills her, cuts her head off, arranges for the head to be delivered at a specific time and location, and then goes to the police.]] He has time to do all that before he arrives at the police station early in the morning schedule, and he's lucky enough to be processed and have his lawyer called, who arrives just immediately... really? Doesn't booking a suspect, interrogating him and letting him talk to his lawyer normally take several hours? And in all that time, [[spoiler:Mills]] at no point calls his home just to say "hello" to his wife or "Hey, honey, guess what? We caught him! I'm so happy!". Just one phone call from [[spoiler:Mills]] to see how's the dogs are doing, or what's for dinner and Doe's plan would've failed.
** Not necessarily. Cell phones weren't yet ''that'' ubiquitous in the mid-Nineties, so [[spoiler: Tracy]] might not regularly carry or even own one. [[spoiler: Mills]] could easily ring his home's landline number, get no answer, and assume she's out walking the dogs or whatever.

** Thank you for this answer! But I don't think I worded my question clearly enough. If Doe did think that [[spoiler: Tracy]] was innocent, why did he kill her? In his speech in the car, he makes it clear that he only went after people who had actually ''committed'' deadly sins, not ''inspired'' them--he didn't, for instance, attack the people who sold the Gluttony victim food, or the Greed victim's clients. Doe's clearly a misanthrope who hates the world, but he doesn't really seem to have a KillEmAll mentality, either, nor does he seem like an AxCrazy psychopath (his murders were all carefully planned and justified in his own head). So I still can't figure out how [[spoiler: Tracy's]] murder fits into his plan.