seven knows exactly what it means to have your freedom taken away. what makes him frightening isn't that he's forgotten what that feels like, but that experiencing it seems to have taught him the wrong lesson. seven was imprisoned for pursuing forbidden occult knowledge, sentenced to death, and subjected to an execution that was supposed to destroy his soul. apparently, simply killing him wasn't enough. they wanted to make certain that nothing of him survived. and somehow, he did. there's something fascinating to me about the kind of person seven has become, especially considering how little we know about who he was before his imprisonment. we may have an idea of his original name, but that doesn't tell us anything about the person behind it. was he always so dismissive of other people? did he always believe himself deserving of more than everyone else? i imagine he was ambitious, considering his interest in forbidden knowledge, but i have a hard time believing he was always exactly like this. seven wasn't imprisoned for decades. we're talking about a few years that ended with an attempt to erase him from existence, and i can't imagine coming out of that unchanged. i do have a theory about who seven was before his imprisonment, but i want to save that for another writing. for now, i'm more interested in the man we're actually seeing. seven is arrogant, cruel, and seems perfectly comfortable with the idea that he's superior to almost everyone around him. he wants to become a god, and i genuinely think he believes that's where he belongs. but i keep coming back to the fact that he's already experienced what happens when someone else has complete control over your life. seven claims to have freed himself from his past, yet he's still walking around with the remnants of his imprisonment and execution attached to him. i love that about his design. there's something so fitting about a man pursuing godhood who still looks like someone who survived something he was never supposed to survive. his conversations with dynamo are particularly interesting to me. dynamo has been given abilities that seven would probably do anything to possess, but he wants his old life back. he wants to go home to his family, and seven seems genuinely frustrated by that. it's clear seven sees it as a waste. he can't understand why someone would have access to something so extraordinary and choose not to pursue it. but dynamo has something he wants more than power. and there's an exchange between them that i really love. when dynamo suggests that seven's perspective is easy to have when you've never loved anyone, seven responds that those are easy words to say when you have. i wasn't expecting that from him. seven has loved someone, and he seems to remember that experience very differently from dynamo. the archmother mentions that someone seven loved attempted to take a destiny that had already been denied to him. we don't know the circumstances, and i'm incredibly curious about what actually happened, but it does make his attitude toward attachment a lot more interesting. especially when he speaks to bebop. bebop believes loving someone gives him something to fight for. seven sees it as something an enemy could use against you, and he doesn't hesitate to explain how he could hurt bebop through the person he loves. i think it's interesting that seven understands exactly how much that would hurt. he knows what love is. he knows what it means to care about someone, and apparently he's experienced what happens when that relationship becomes something painful. so when he tells bebop that attachment makes him weak, i wonder how much of that is advice he's given himself? maybe he really does believe love is a weakness now. maybe that's easier than admitting someone once meant enough to him that losing their trust could change how he approaches everyone else. i find that incredibly sad, actually. and i think his conversations with graves suggest something similar. seven seems to believe that mentors use their students to accomplish things they couldn't achieve themselves. he talks about guidance as though there's always some selfish motive behind it, and i'm curious whether that's something he learned from experience. he doesn't seem particularly willing to trust that someone might want to help him without expecting something in return. even with baba, when she questions why someone as brilliant as him needs the patrons, he immediately corrects her. he isn't relying on them. he's using them. which is such a seven thing to say. he's asking beings more powerful than himself to grant him something he can't currently accomplish, but god forbid anyone suggest he might actually need their help. i think there's something revealing about how determined he is to maintain that distinction. maybe he really does believe he can manipulate the patrons, but the idea of anyone thinking he depends on them seems to bother him just as much as the possibility of actually needing them. what i struggle with is how little his experiences seem to have influenced the way he treats other people. seven knows what it's like to have his choices taken away. people decided what knowledge he was permitted to pursue, imprisoned him for it, and eventually attempted to destroy his soul. you'd think someone who had experienced that might have a great understanding of why freedom matters. but seven doesn't seem especially bothered by the idea of exercising that same kind of power over someone else. he's perfectly willing to use bebop's love against him. he looks down on dynamo for wanting his family back, and he seems to think people with extraordinary abilities are foolish if they don't use them the way he believes they should. i don't think seven came away from his imprisonment believing nobody should ever have that kind of power over another person. i think he came away believing nobody should ever have that kind of power over him again. and that makes his desire for godhood particularly interesting to me. he's already survived an execution that should have destroyed his soul. he's escaped imprisonment, and he's become powerful enough that most people would probably be terrified to challenge him. but he still wants more. i'm sure seven enjoys the idea of being superior to everyone else. he's hardly subtle about that. but i wonder whether godhood has become the only thing he believes could truly prevent someone from ever taking his freedom away again? because even now, someone could theoretically be stronger than him. someone could have knowledge he doesn't possess, or something he needs. there's always the possibility that he could end up depending on another person, and we've seen how much he dislikes even acknowledging that possibility. dynamo has a family he wants to return to. bebop has someone he loves enough to fight for. violet knows the world might reject her, but she's still willing to put herself out there because she believes what she has to say matters. seven sees potential in these people, and i think he's genuinely frustrated when they don't pursue it. but maybe they don't want what he wants. maybe they're perfectly aware of what they could become, and they've decided there are other things they care about more. i wonder whether seven can still imagine feeling that way about anything. especially when he's willing to take such an enormous risk himself for the possibility of becoming a god. he's participating in a ritual where his greatest ambition depends on the patrons, despite how insistent he is that he's the one using them. maybe he really does have some way of manipulating the outcome, but he's still putting himself in a position where something more powerful than him has a say in what happens next. and i find it interesting that he's willing to accept that uncertainty for power, but seems unable to understand why someone like dynamo would accept vulnerability for love. i don't know that seven was ever a particularly kind person. he may have been arrogant, selfish, and dangerous long before anyone attempted to execute him. i'm not trying to suggest he was innocent or that his experiences excuse the things he's done since. but i find it incredibly unlikely that the person who entered that prison was exactly the same as the one who came out. he's experienced a kind of helplessness that most people will never understand, and now so much of what he does seems concerned with making sure nobody can ever put him in that position again. there's something understandable about that, even if i don't agree with what he's become. i also don't think seven would particularly appreciate being interpreted this way. i imagine he'd be furious at the suggestion that his ambitions are still influenced by people he considers beneath him. but i wonder what actually happens if he gets everything he wants. he survived his execution, escaped imprisonment, and became extraordinarily powerful. none of that seems to have satisfied him. so what would? seven claims to have freed himself from his past, but so much of what he wants still seems to be shaped by it. and i wonder whether becoming a god would actually free him from that? or if he'd simply become powerful enough that nobody could ever make him confront it?