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The book of Revelation can sit in three different genres at the same time. For an excellent breakdown of the genres in Revelation and how the author expects them to work together, see Richard Bauckham, The Theology of The Book of Revelation, (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 1–16.

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Revelation challenges Jesus’s followers to be overcomers. The Greek nikao certainly can carry the connotation of conquering something in a military or warlike sense, but given the context of Revelation and the call to sacrificial death rather than warlike aggression, it seems best to opt for the idea of overcoming in the face of obstacles. See William Arndt et al., A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 673.

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The hearts of humanity still remain hardened. Baukham makes a compelling argument that the nature of the judgments prior to the opening and implementing of the scroll aim to bring the rebelling world to repentance. But the increasing intensity seems to have the opposite effect—at the very least, with each group of judgments the people fail to repent (Baukham, Theology of Revelation, 82–83).