Imagine making your fortune selling bulletproof
vests. Right. And surviving six consecutive government
mandated murder attempts. But no small feat.
No, not at all. But then after all that, you
get killed by a cigarette lighter just because
you fell in love. It's wild. It really is. It
is. And today, we're looking at a scenario that
proves human vulnerability is, like, infinitely
more dangerous than any actual weapon. So welcome
to another Deep Dive. Glad to be here for this
one. Our mission for you today is to explore
this 1953 science fiction short story. It's by
Robert Shuckley, and it's called Seventh Victim.
Yeah, a real classic. Right. And on the surface,
it looks like this classic pulp sci -fi premise,
right? Like a legalized post -apocalyptic assassination.
Which was a very popular trope at the time, I
guess. Totally. But what we're really gonna uncover
here is how this 70 -year -old tale is actually
this masterful, highly ironic commentary on the
vulnerabilities of love. Exactly. And, you know,
the absolute inevitability of human self -deception.
It's a brilliant piece of writing. Yeah. Precisely
because it just completely subverts your expectations
as a reader. Oh, 100%. You go into this story
bracing for a gritty, you know... action -packed
thriller about survival in a dystopian city.
Right, you want the action movie. Yeah, but then
you walk away questioning the fundamental ways
we lie to ourselves the second we become emotionally
invested in someone else. It's a bait and switch
in the best possible way. OK, let's unpack this.
Because before we can even get to the legendary
twist of the story, and it's a good one, we have
to immerse ourselves in the chillingly bureaucratic
world that Sheckley built here. We really do.
Like, we need to understand exactly why a society
would ever choose to institutionalize murder.
Which sounds completely counterintuitive. Right.
So here is the setup for you. Humanity has just
barely survived the Fourth World War. Barely.
Barely. And to prevent a Fifth World War from,
you know, wiping out whatever is left of the
human race, society decides they have to eliminate
major global warfare altogether. Right, the stakes
are ultimate survival. Exactly. And their grand
solution to achieving this world peace is something
they call the Big Hunt. And the logic driving
this society is... Well, it's as fascinating
as it is dark. Oh, it's so dark. According to
the lore of the story, the government determines
that approximately one quarter of the human population
is inherently inclined toward violence. Just
biologically, basically. Right. And they believe
that if they bottle up that natural aggression,
if they try to suppress it with laws and prisons
and normal justice systems... Just gonna blow
up. Exactly. It will eventually build up pressure
and explode into another global conflict. So
their solution is to create a highly regulated
release valve for that specific 25 % of the population.
And they run this entire lethal operation through
a government agency with the most dystopian bureaucratic
name imaginable. I love the name. It's so good.
It's called the Emotional Catharsis Bureau. Just
incredible. Just think about the sheer absurdity
of that name for a second. They have taken the
raw, horrific reality of murder, and they've
wrapped it in the sanitized language of, like,
a weekend wellness retreat. Right. Emotional
catharsis. Exactly. So through this bureau, citizens
can voluntarily sign up for the Big Hunt, where
they alternate back and forth between two distinct
roles. The hunter and the victim. Yep. And this
brings us right to our main character, Stanton
Frillane. Stand up for me. Yes, and he is not
some terrified rookie. Just trying to survive
his first game. He is a highly experienced hunter.
He's got six successful rounds already under
his belt. He is the consummate player of the
game, like completely acclimated to this reality.
Yeah. What makes for Lane such a compelling protagonist
to analyze is how thoroughly he has integrated
this brutal life or death game into normal everyday
capitalism. Yes. The capitalism angle is so funny.
Right. He lives in Cleveland, and his day job
is literally co -owning a company that manufactures
and sells bulletproof vests to other players
of the Big Hunt. It is the ultimate conflict
of interests. Oh, completely. Like, you're participating
in a lethal game, and you're nine to five is
selling the armor for it. Gotta make a living
somehow. I just love this detail because it's
like a twisted lethal version of a gig economy
app or maybe like an extreme sports league. Yeah,
that's a good way to put it. You've got this
post -World War II society trying to neatly compartmentalize
the messy reality of human violence into like
A regulated bureaucracy. With merchandise, essentially.
Exactly. And Frillane even looks up to his older
business partner, this guy named E .J. Morgher,
specifically because Morgher is a member of the
Ten's Club. The Ten's Club being this... highly
coveted, really rarefied status that you can
only achieve by surviving 10 alternating rounds
of the hunt. So that's five as a hunter, five
as a victim. Exactly. It has become the ultimate
status symbol in a society that is just entirely
gamified death. Right. And if we connect this
to the bigger picture, the very existence of
the Emotional Catharsis Bureau highlights society's
desperate, almost naive need to quantify and
control human nature. Oh, totally naive. The
authorities in this world genuinely believe that
if they just apply enough rules, file enough
paperwork, and create tiered status levels for
violence. Like frequent flyer miles for murder.
Right. They think they can tame it. They treat
human emotion like a predictable math equation.
Which never works out. Never. And that exact
mindset, that unwavering belief in a coldly logical
system is what sets the stage for Frilane to
be so thoroughly manipulated later on in the
story. Okay, so if a society has gamified death
to this extreme and created all these unspoken
rules of engagement, what happens when a player
completely refuses to play their part? Well,
the system breaks down. Exactly. And Frillene
is about to find out the hard way. So he receives
his seventh official assignment from the Bureau.
Lucky number seven. Right. And his designated
victim is a woman named Janet Marie Patsig, and
she's located in New York. Which is a huge surprise
to him. He is genuinely shocked by this. He has
never even heard of a woman playing the hunt
before. Which shows you a lot about the gender
dynamics Sheckley was playing with in the 50s.
Oh, absolutely. So Frilane actually picks up
the phone and calls the emotional catharsis bureau
just to double check that they didn't make like
a clerical error in his file. And the bureau
confirms the assignment is real, which completely
shatters his preconceived notions of what a victim
is supposed to look like. Right. So Frilane travels
to New York and he's mentally preparing himself
for a tense, highly strategic hunt. He's ready
for action. Very ready. He goes out to scout
her neighborhood. entirely expecting her to be
in hiding? barricaded in an apartment somewhere,
or at the very least, heavily armed, paranoid,
and scanning the crowds. Because that's what
he would do. Exactly. But that is not what happens
at all. Instead, he spots her almost immediately.
Just out in the open. Right out in the open.
She is just sitting at an outdoor cafe, casually
smoking a cigarette. She has no cover, no bodyguards,
no tactical gear, and definitely no bulletproof
vest from his Cleveland company. She is just
sitting there, completely exposed, and furlanes
in turn. reaction to seeing this is so telling
about how this society functions. Oh, it really
is. He isn't relieved that he's been handed an
easy risk -free kill. No, he's furious. He feels
cheated. He actually feels like he is being robbed
of his full catharsis because his victim isn't
fighting back. And that psychological detail
is the linchpin of the entire narrative. Yeah.
It demonstrates that for a seasoned player like
Freelane, the hunt isn't actually about the mechanics
of the kill. You're right. It's not about paperwork.
No, it's about the thrill. It is about the chase,
the adrenaline, and the ultimate validation of
his own skill and superiority. He wants to prove
he's the best. Exactly. So when Patsig just sits
there at the cafe drinking her coffee, she completely
breaks the unspoken psychological contract of
the game. Ferlay needs the excitement and the
tension to feel that emotional release the Bureau
promised him. A target who doesn't run offers
no catharsis whatsoever. It's like playing a
video game on the lowest difficulty setting.
There's no satisfaction. Precisely. So desperately
seeking that missing thrill, he does something
incredibly reckless. Very reckless. He deliberately
places himself in physical danger by walking
right up to her table. He pretends he's just
some random guy in town on business looking for
a date. Just making small talk. Right. And the
whole time he's doing this, he is fully expecting
her to see through his disguise, panic, and pull
a gun on him. He wants her to. He's literally
waiting for the adrenaline spike. He wants her
to fight back so badly. But Patsy does not pull
a gun. No. She initially just brushes off his
advances, very bleakly telling him that she will
probably be dead soon anyway, so there's no point
in a date. Which is such a dark thing to say
to a stranger. It is. But slowly, she opens up
to him. She explains her backstory, that she
came to New York to be an actress, failed miserably,
and looking for some kind of excitement or purpose,
she impulsively signed up for the hunt. As you
do. Right. But during her very first mission
as a hunter, when she actually had the upper
hand, she couldn't pull the trigger. She froze.
She couldn't find the courage to take her assigned
victim's life. Now the rules have flipped, and
it is her turn to be the victim. She confesses
to Ferlain that she can't even contemplate shooting
the person hunting her, so she's simply given
up. She's sitting at the cafe, passively waiting
to be killed. And this confession just completely
disarms him. Oh, entirely. Like all his tactical
preparation goes straight out the window. They
end up spending the entire afternoon together
just walking around the city. Having a lovely
time. But Patsig is just consumed by this looming
doom, constantly lamenting that her life is about
to end at any moment. Elaine, the hardened killer,
the guy on his seventh lethal round. The bulletproof
vest salesman. Yes. He completely falls for her.
He falls head over heels in love, and unable
to bear her sadness, he finally drops the charade.
He tells her the truth. He admits to her that
he is her assigned hunter, but promises her he
can't do it. Instead of murdering her, he proposes
marriage on the spot. Right. He offers her the
ultimate fairy tale out. He believes he is stepping
into the role of the savior, offering to rescue
her life, marry her, and take her away from this
barbaric game entirely. And here is where the
brutal irony of the story locks into place. You're
right. Pat Sig is incredibly relieved. She accepts
his proposal. She leans in, kisses him, and then
pulls out a cigarette to celebrate. Naturally.
She sparks her cigarette lighter and She shoots
him dead. Boom. The lighter was a concealed gun
the entire time. The entire time. And as Freline
is bleeding out, dying on the pavement, the last
thing he hears is Patsig joyfully announcing
that with this successful kill, she finally gets
to join the Elite Ten's club. It is a devastating
twist because it recontextualizes every single
interaction they just had. It's the ultimate
tragic irony. Think about the mechanics of this
for a second. Frilane is a man who literally
makes his living selling bulletproof vests. Right.
He profits off selling physical armor to protect
people from physical bullets. But the absolute
second he lowered his emotional armor, it killed
him. It was fatal. He was prepared for every
tactical threat in the book, but he had absolutely
zero defense against his own romantic impulses.
And this forces us to look at Frilane's fatal
flaw. It wasn't just that he was gullible in
a single moment, right? It was his insatiable
need for a narrative, for excitement. His desire
for that full catharsis completely blinded his
normally sharp survival instincts. He walked
up to that cafe table, thinking he was the predator,
playfully toying with his food, completely unaware
that he had been the prey from the very first
second they made eye contact. She was playing
him the whole time. Patzig played the role of
the helpless, tragic victim flawlessly. Which,
ironically enough, proves she wasn't a field
actress after all. Oh, wow. She gave the absolute
performance of a lifetime. Oh, I love that. The
layers to that deception are incredible. But
this plot twist isn't just there for shock value,
is it? No, not at all. This is the exact mechanism
Sheckley uses to pivot the entire narrative.
He takes this pulpy sci -fi thriller about assassins
and suddenly turns it into a profound philosophical
commentary. Exactly. Because if you look at Robert
Sheckley's later writings analyzing his own work,
he explicitly stated that Seventh victim is ultimately
a story about love. Really? Yes. He described
love as this inextinguishable, irrational impulse
that can blossom in even the most hardened calculating
of creatures, like for Lane. Right, against all
logic. And that impulse, once activated, will
drive a person either to ultimate fulfillment,
or directly to their death. Wait, I need to challenge
this for a second. Go for it. How can a story
fundamentally centered on a government mandated
murder game not be about violence? The entire
world building premise, the world wars, the emotional
catharsis bureau, that is a massive critique
of human aggression and warfare, isn't it? You
would certainly think so, and a lot of critics
did at the time. Yeah. But Sheckley pushed back
on that interpretation very hard. He wrote that
within the context of the story, the hunt is
actually an ironic, futuristic equivalent of
the creative act. The creative act. Yes. It is
something people are doing for its own sake,
driven by passion and thrill, rather than a reasoned
logical outcome. He explicitly stated that claiming
seventh victim is simply a story about the problem
of violence. It's like saying Jonathan Swist,
a modest proposal is simply a story about the
eating habits of the Irish. Oh, okay. That is
a fantastic analogier. For anyone who hasn't
read the Swift essay, a modest proposal is that
famous satirical piece from 1729, where Swift
suggests that impoverished Irish people could
solve their economic troubles by selling their
children as food to the rich. A very grim piece
of satire. Right. And obviously it's not a literal
culinary guide or an essay on agriculture. It
is a scathing, exaggerated critique of British
policies and the heartlessness of the upper class.
Exactly. So Sheckley is doing the exact same
thing here. He is using the extreme, grotesque
metaphor of legalized, bureaucratic murder to
talk about something entirely different. Yes,
he is. And if we follow that logic all the way
through, then love itself is the actual big hunt.
Romance is this terrifying game where we willingly
step out into the open, sit at the cafe without
any armor, and play the vulnerable victim, just
hoping the other person doesn't pull the trigger.
And what is so fascinating about that interpretation
is how perfectly the metaphor maps onto the mechanics
of romantic relationships. Sheckley is basically
issuing a warning about the sheer inevitability
of self -deception. Right, the stories we tell
ourselves. Exactly. When we fall in love, we
tell ourselves stories. Ferlain told himself
a very specific story. that Patsy was a helpless
damsel in distress who desperately needed his
protection. He wanted to be the hero. He wanted
to be the hero of that narrative so badly that
he willfully ignored every single red flag, including
the very obvious fact that she was an active
participant in a literal murder game. Yeah, minor
detail. It's a small oversight. The story exposes
how our own ego, our deep desire to feel essential
and to experience excitement, can be the deadliest
trap of all. The Emotional Catharsis Bureau thought
they could control human nature with rules and
paperwork, and Ferlain thought he was in total
control of the interaction at the cafe. Both
were completely, fatally deceiving themselves.
It is wild to think about how deep that psychological
critique goes, but, you know, this provocative
blend of lethal games and human psychology didn't
just stay trapped in the pages of a 1953 issue
of Galaxy Science Fiction magazine. No, it certainly
didn't. The ideas in this story bled into pop
culture in a massive way, spawning adaptations
and even creating a real -life phenomenon. The
cultural lineage of this concept is quite a journey,
honestly. Sheckley's story didn't emerge from
a vacuum. It was actually inspired by an even
older piece of fiction. Richard Connell's famous
1924 short story, The Most Dangerous Game. Right,
which everyone reads in high school. Exactly.
It's essentially the granddaddy of all humans
hunting humans for sport tropes. But where Connell
focused on the physical jungle survival aspect
of the hunt, Sheckley took that framework and
made it deeply psychological and urban. Right.
And the impact of Seventh Victim in the real
world was surprisingly direct and physical. Okay,
this is the part that blows my mind. It's crazy.
Seventh Victim was the original direct inspiration
for the live action college game Assassin. Yep.
Like if you went to an American university campus
anytime in the 1980s, you probably saw kids running
around dormitories playing this. With the water
guns in the safe zones. Exactly. And according
to the history of the game, it was introduced
at the University of Michigan in 1978 by a coordinator
named Lenny Pitt, who had previously played a
version of it at the Roper School. Think about
the massive disconnect happening there. It's
so funny. You have this highly nuanced literary
critique about emotional vulnerability, the dangers
of ego, and the self -deception inherent in romantic
love. Yeah. And society's takeaway is to turn
it into college students sneaking around cafeterias
shooting each other with water guns. It is a
bizarre cultural telephone game. Like, people
read a deeply layered story about a guy who dies
because he trusted a woman playing a victim.
And the collective cultural response is, Hey,
dodging assassins would be a really fun game
to play after calculus. Right. And it wasn't
just college kids running around with water guns
either. The story was adapted into media multiple
times, often missing the point just as spectacularly.
Oh, the adaptations are fascinating. Yeah. Like
in 1957, there was an X minus one radio play
adaptation by Ernest Kenoy. Right, the radio
show. Yeah. And they mostly kept to the original
plot, though they added a bureau character named
Emmanuel Gale, basically just to deliver heavy
exposition while Ferlain was packing. his bags
for New York. Difficult radio drum mechanics?
Exactly. But the adaptation that truly takes
the cake, the one that is just gloriously unhinged,
is the 1965 Italian film The Tenth Victim. Oh,
that film adaptation is a truly fascinating artifact
of its era. It starred Ursula Andress and Marcello
Mastriani, and the filmmakers heavily modified
the core plot. In the film, They actually switched
the roles around. Right, they flipped it. Yeah,
Ursula Andress plays the hunter who is seeking
her 10th victim to join the club and Mastroianni
plays her assigned victim. They become romantically
involved, maintaining the core tension of the
short story. But the twist they added is incredibly
cynical. It's so capitalist. Andress's character
isn't just trying to survive or get a catharsis.
She is trying to arrange the perfect kill because
she has secured a highly lucrative corporate
sponsorship from a tea company. A tea company?
A tea company. She is literally monetizing her
state -sponsored assassination for brand synergy.
It's amazing. It is hilarious. But honestly,
it is also incredibly prophetic. That 1965 movie
is predicting modern influencer culture and corporate
sponsorships decades before social media or Instagram
even existed. Oh, completely. Imagine the ad
raid, right? Brought to you by Earl Grey, the
perfect soothing tea to drink after a long day
of hunting your fellow humans. Use promo code
Hunter for 20 % off. Exactly. And the wildest
part is that Sheckley actually loved the movie's
bizarre concepts so much that he wrote a novelization
of the film and then followed it up in the late
80s with two of his own sequels. Right. Victim
Prime and Hunter Victim. Yes. And the irony of
all these adaptations and games is that they
serve as the ultimate proof of Sheckley's original
point. How so? Well, he writes a cautionary tale
about how human beings deceive themselves, hiding
their true, vulnerable motives behind complex
games and the pursuit of thrills. And how does
society respond? By completely missing the philosophical
warning about love and ego, and instead hyper
-focusing entirely on the mechanical rules of
the murder game itself. We just like the game
part. Exactly. We turned it into college fads
and stylish cinematic spectacles sponsored by
fictional tea companies. We actively proved his
thesis about self -deception by collectively
deceiving ourselves about what the story actually
meant in the first place. That is so true. We
just wanted the thrill of the water gun fight.
We really did. We absolutely did not want the
mirror held up to our own romantic failures and
ego trips. We preferred the surface level action
over the deep psychological critique. Which is
very human of us. Which brings us full circle
to why we chose to dive into this material today.
We have journeyed from a bleak post -World War
III dystopia imagined in a 1953 magazine, to
a 1980s college campus water gun game, all the
way to the cinematic origins of influencer culture
in a 1960s Italian film. Quite the trip. But
why does a 70 -year -old sci -fi story about
assassins actually matter to you today? Because
it challenges you to look at your own life, strip
away the metaphors, and ask the hard questions.
Where in your life, particularly in your relationships,
are you aggressively playing the hunter. Right.
And where are you willingly, perhaps manipulatively,
playing the victim? What elaborate self -deceptions
are you holding onto right now just to feel the
thrill of the game? Are you walking through life
wearing a heavy bulletproof vest while leaving
your heart completely exposed to the first person
who sits at your cafe table? It makes you wonder
about the very nature of the conflicts we create,
doesn't it? Yeah, it really does. I mean, the
emotional catharsis bureau in the story was created
to prevent another world war by funneling human
violence into a highly controlled gamified system.
But if, as Sheckley argues, the hunt is not actually
about violence at all, if it is truly an allegory
for love, for the creative act, and for the raw,
unyielding human need for excitement, does that
imply something profound about conflict itself?
That's a huge question. We look at conflicts,
whether it is an intense argument with a spouse
or a massive global war, and we assume it is
just born out of anger and aggression. But Sheckley
leaves us with this terrifying, lingering thought.
Are the wars we wage, both personal and global,
born not out of mere hatred, but out of a twisted,
unfulfilled human desire for passion, for deep
connection, and for the ultimate thrill of feeling
alive? Now that is a heavy, fascinating thought
to chew on the next time you think you've got
your own modems all figured out. Thank you for
joining us on this deep dive. Keep questioning
the rules of the game you find yourself playing,
and most importantly, stay curious.