Have you ever noticed how prominent seven is in YA fantasy? Almost everything you read in the genre manages to incorporate it. Here are seven instances in the most popular YA fantasy series ever written, Harry Potter. The number of books in the series, years of study at Hogwarts, horcruxes for Voldemort’s soul, players on a Quidditch team, Weasley children, secret passages out of Hogwarts, and it’s the most powerful magic number. Moving down the pantheon of books, there are seven books in the Septimus Heap series, which features the exploits of the seventh son of a seventh son. It’s also the number of heroes of the Great Prophecy in the Heroes of Olympus series.
Seven in American Sign Language
While not strictly written for YA, even my beloved Tolkien is enamored with it. There’s one ring of power for each of the seven dwarf fathers. Feanor had seven sons and created the seven Palantiri. There are seven lords and ladies of the Valar. For you real Tolkien nerds seven rivers feed both Ossiriand (the only portion of Beleriand to survive the War of Wrath) and Gondor the last remnant of Dunedain kingdoms. Even my Misaligned series features a character from the 7th dimension.
Expand beyond YA fantasy and you’ll find that seven holds a special place in many cultures and religions. The number of heavens in Islam, days of creation, Chakras of meditation, deadly sins, rounds in a Hindu wedding, blessings in a Jewish wedding, and dozens of other religious occurrences. Geographically we have the seven seas (see this week’s Map Monday post), continents, the hills of Rome & Istanbul and wonders of the ancient world. Newer popular culture is filled with the number, too. Film references include Snow White’s dwarfs, James Bond as 007, and the Magnificent 7(a Westernization of the Seven Samurai). We have the seventh inning stretch in baseball, a touchdown (plus extra point) is worth seven points, and there are seven players in hockey, water polo, and team handball.
To be fair many of these references are related and reinforcing, e.g., seven days of creation leads to days of the week. A lot of the instances I cite in the YA stories come from the mythologies they borrow from. So why the mythology and religious connections, which seem to drive many of the references?
Heavenly Connection
For thousands of year humans looked to the heavens for guidance. According to Cool Cosmos; on a clear moonless night you can see ~2,000 stars with the naked eye. If you watch them carefully you’ll notice that five objects are different. Together with the sun and the moon, these objects (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) are the classical planets. Their number certainly influenced the formation of pantheons, mythologies, and early religious beliefs. From a more inward looking perspective, there’s George A. Miller’s famous 1956 article; which in a greatly simplified form postulates that humans can process/remember seven pieces of information. It does vary a bit based on the type of information (thus the plus or minus two), but it’s generally seven. In perhaps an odd coincidence, it took Miller seven years to realize the magic of the number seven.
So there you have it the science of our minds and the movements of the classical planets are responsible for the plague of sevens. Well, that’s my story. If you’ve got a better one (serious or otherwise), please feel free to share it as a comment.
As always thanks for reading.
Armen
Awesome post! I find this really interesting. Do you think that using the number seven adds to a story because of the symbolism that it implies or that it detracts from writing if it is perceived as a cliche?
Part of me wants to call it cliche, yet every instance I’ve called out has been tremendously successful. Did they succeed in spite of using seven? Would Snow White be remembered if she had six or eight dwarfs? How about James Bond 005? I don’t know, but I suspect there is some deep-seated psychological and cultural significance to the number seven. Personally, I’ve got a thing for prime numbers and my stories tend to include many instances of seven, five, three, and even eleven. To date that hasn’t delivered huge success, but perhaps I need to wait seven years….