# Lets talk about torture.



## Grimmlore (Jun 20, 2013)

I'm looking for different methods of torture for my Villain.

So far I can think of:

 Chinese water torture
Near death drowning
skinned alive
burning and branding
whipping
cutting off body parts
 
any more?


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## CupofJoe (Jun 20, 2013)

Extreme cold
Rack
Iron Maiden
Isolation - physical or implied
Confinement - really small space - hard to breath
Seat-less chairs and "soft" truncheons
Insertion of small objects under nails or behind eyes
Insertion of larger object elsewhere [ahem - family friendly site...]
All of the above but on someone else...


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## CupofJoe (Jun 20, 2013)

Grimmlore said:


> I'm looking for different methods of torture for my Villain.
> 
> So far I can think of:
> 
> ...


What I should have asked is: why is your villain torturing people/little fluffy animals?
It could be to extract information, for revenge, instil terror or for "fun".
Each if these will require different outcomes and therefore methods.
And I'm beginning to think about this far too much...


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## MFreako (Jun 20, 2013)

If your villain uses torture to extract information, I think sleep deprivation is a good one. Combine it with a more painful form of torture and you have yourself one willing-to-divulge-secrets prisoner.


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## Grimmlore (Jun 20, 2013)

He's teaching people a lesson and uses it as punishment. My mc caught him torturing a woman, well heard it happening from behind a closed door before he could leave fast enough my villain catches him spying and locks him in the room for a week chained to a wall. (with the tortured woman who has been flayed alive and left to hang upside down.) Sometimes he tortures them to death sometimes he lets them live.


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## druidofwinter (Jun 20, 2013)

If he is teaching them a lesson or setting an example for others it seems to me he would chose the most brutal option available. If he is looking to kill them in the process he could crucify them. I think that would be pretty slow and painful.


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## wordwalker (Jun 20, 2013)

I suppose there's acids, or bees and other moderately-poisonous creatures, or ants or other animals that slowly eat you.



Grimmlore said:


> My mc caught him torturing a woman, well heard it happening from behind a closed door before he could leave fast enough my villain catches him spying and locks him in the room for a week chained to a wall. (with the tortured woman who has been flayed alive and left to hang upside down.) Sometimes he tortures them to death sometimes he lets them live.



If the idea is teaching a lesson, there's more than one lesson that could be taught. There's a moment in the _Guardians of the Flame_ books where a slavery-and-torture survivor teaches a group of newly freed slaves about freedom by handing over their their former masters in chains.

We never see what they do to them, but everyone but the women agree it's a _very_ rough kind of empowerment lesson.


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## Grimmlore (Jun 20, 2013)

*Wordwalker* Very interesting idea I hadn't thought about. Thank you for that one


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## Butterfly (Jun 20, 2013)

Bone breaking, dislocation, smashed joints, the scavenger's daughter.

If he wants this lesson to be seen by others it would leave his victim with a clear and permanent disablement and can potentially cause other infections such as pneumonia if not treated in time.

It depends on what your villain has in his arsenal though. The weapons he carries and motives and whether your villain intends for him to live.


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## Scribble (Jun 20, 2013)

If this is fantasy, or sci fi, why not go creative on the torture?

Psychic torture illusions:

- Fire that does not burn
- Ice that does not freeze
- Blades that do not cut

What about the creative use of magical or bizarre creatures. Here are some of the horrible things that have escaped from the darker dungeons of my mind:

*Pain worms* - you introduce them into the host and they feed on certain endorphins in a human host, and to elicit pain their chew on the ends of nerves.

*Nighteel boots* - large lamprey-like eel creatures are attached to each foot of the victim, who is immersed in a tank of water. The eels slowly digest the skin using acid but do not break the skin. The result is a wriggling creature that eventually engulfs the entire leg, in a searing, pin pricking pain.

*Firemites* - nasty little mites that burrow into the skin and live there rather peacefully - until you activate them. Spreading the oil of a certain plant on the skin causes the firemites to go into a frenzy, the males secrete a kind of oil that burns savagely. The plant oil mimics the mating pheromone of the female, and induces a frenzy in the males. The upshot is that they burst forth onto the skin to try to attract the horde of females that isn't really there, and in the process, a searing pain torments the host, but does not actually harm them.


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## Grimmlore (Jun 20, 2013)

They are awesome ideas ill have to keep them in mind! I'm trying to aim for a fantasy/horror hybrid with this one I think the more realistic and achievable the better. I remembered seeing a movie once where a guy was tied to a pole. a tyre was lifted over him and the pole. the tyre had some fuel on it and it was lit on fire for a few minutes. Rubber burns crazy hot. Tyres and fuel just about everyone has so this one struck a chord and gave me a slight shiver.
oh and it was a small tyre so it sat around his tummy.


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## brokethepoint (Jun 20, 2013)

I have been to a ren faire that had a medieval torture display, they were quite skilled at it.

The box around the head that a rat was placed in.  That was a nasty one.


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## Grimmlore (Jun 20, 2013)

what did the rat do?? was it the same as trapped rat on the stomach?


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## brokethepoint (Jun 20, 2013)

as the rat would get hungry it would start eating


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## Asura Levi (Jun 20, 2013)

One I saw in a film:

Put a rat in the victim bare belly, put a iron bucket over it (upside down, so the rat is inside the bucket), heat the bucket. To escape death, the rat will dig through the victim flesh. I bet this would be enough to get some info (^^x).


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## CupofJoe (Jun 21, 2013)

Asura Levi said:


> ... I bet this would be enough to get some info (^^x).


Probably... but would it be the right information or just want you wanted them to say...


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## Asura Levi (Jun 21, 2013)

If turn out to be fake you can always left the rat finish its escape as a punishment. 

I don't remember nothing more about the film where I saw it, just this scene.


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## psychotick (Jun 22, 2013)

Hi,

The rat in the bucket is from season two of Game of Thrones.

As far as torture goes, if you're not seeking information but only to "teach the victim a lesson" then what you want to do is psychologically break the victim. Offer them hope then take it away. Make them sacrifice what they hold dear like their genitals just to escape the pain. Make them believe that they have done things that they haven't. Get them to confess to a crime they haven't committed then punish them for lying. Make them beg and then show them that their lives weren't worth begging for. Torture is a mental thing as much as a physical thing.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Aprella (Jun 24, 2013)

I have a character that is being tortured twice: one by magic (it feels as all his bones are breaking and that every fibre of his body is on fire) and the second time by being locked up in a filthy dungeon for three weeks and at the end of that period, he's being flogged with a cat o'nine tails. 
I was actually wondering what this does to someone mentally. I find it very hard to place myself into my characters positions because I never felt such excruciating pain.  

@Psychotick: can you give some examples about such torture mental torture? I have this character who has committed murders when he's body was taken over by an evil witch but he stills blamed himself and took a memory potion to erase the memory... the person who's torturing (and he does it without the knowledge of the king, just because he dislikes the character) and I was thinking that perhaps I might be able to do something with it, though I'm not quite sure were to start. The only problem is that my characters has to stay sane and make a more or less full recovery (of course he would be changed).


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## A. E. Lowan (Jun 24, 2013)

Aprella said:


> I have a character that is being tortured twice: one by magic (it feels as all his bones are breaking and that every fibre of his body is on fire) and the second time by being locked up in a filthy dungeon for three weeks and at the end of that period, he's being flogged with a cat o'nine tails.
> I was actually wondering what this does to someone mentally. I find it very hard to place myself into my characters positions because I never felt such excruciating pain.



Well, having... ahem... used a plain leather cat o'nine tails, I can tell you from experience that they actually don't hurt all that much.  Go buy one and play with it, and you'll see what I mean.  They make a lot of noise, sure, but for actual torture I do not recommend it.  Now, a _hooked_ cat o'nine - think nine leather tails with small hooks on the ends - will tear through skin and flesh.  That's pain.  There is also the bullwhip.  Several feet of braided leather on a long handle.  In the hands of an experienced user, one of those things can cleave flesh from bone, or snuff a candle flame.  Takes years of practice to get that good, though.  They make a menacing hissing sound as they are swept back and forth across a floor.

You don't have to have ever actually experienced the pain yourself to place yourself in your character's shoes.  Just close your eyes.  Open your senses.  Slip into your character's skin.  What do you feel?  The bite of the bindings on your wrists as you are bound to the whipping post?  The stretching of your shoulder joints, aching from exhaustion and trying to sleep on a filthy dungeon floor?  What do you smell?  The first fresh air in weeks, or the reek of the prison sewer?  The drying blood on the post under your face?  Now, open yourself to the pain.  The rip and pull as your flesh is torn by the whips.  The burn in your throat as you scream, over and over, until you have no more screams to give.

Imagination gives us the best dreams.


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## Aprella (Jun 25, 2013)

Yes, it was definitely going to be a cat o'nine tails with hooks! 
By your description, I immediately could imagine things and it did not make me happy! I'm not sure if I want to dream about that! 

The hardest thing for me, to comprehend is the mental pain and how the body reacts to such pain... I have a few things in my mind to make the character's stay in the dungeon very unpleasant without torturing him for three weeks. We were thinking (co-writer and I) that they will treat him like a piece of dirt and hit him/kick him and talk down upon him and that he eventually becomes afraid to be touched (since every touch hurts) and perhaps he becomes even afraid of people to some extent. Though when he sees his friends when he comes out of the dungeon I thought he might be afraid as some kind of reflex but realises they won't harm him. I'm not sure if this is realistic?


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## SeverinR (Jun 25, 2013)

The study of torture,
The more severe damage to the mind or body the less time you will have to torture. 
The reason dictates the process.

The sadist, will start slow to savor the experience, increasing slowly and trying to inflict the least amount of permanent damage.
Permanent damage means less area to bring pain too, dead nerves are lost opportunity.

The punisher: Wants to cause lasting memories of the offender or to those that might consider following in the offenders footsteps. How severe of torture would decide the level and device of torture. If death is not a concern then suffering prior to death would be the biggest goal. Maybe after the torture, a simple small stab of the intestine, without antibiotics, a long suffering death is almost certain. 

Information gathering: you want the most pain that the person can take without passing out(they can't speak if they aren't concious.) You want the person to see the potential for pain, discomfort, or torture ahead of time. The fear of the unknown of all the little devices, will play on their fears.  You want long enduring pain sessions, and you also want the victim to think/know there is a place of comfort for them after they tell you what you want to know. If there are others, let the victim enjoy the benefits of talking so this is reinforced to future victims, talking is good, you get great comfort. Once they all speak they can be dealt with as the torturer wants, preferably quietly unless you can tell others they lied, then kill them painfully.

Displaying previous victims tends to show you mean business and aren't one to be messed with. Be it a body tortured to death, ot the long suffering victim moaning and groaning all hours of the day or night.

Additional; men tend to be tortured more by a female or childs tortured screams, and will react properly more if they are threatened first, but reversely, if the female or children are killed, the man has a stronger desire to withstand real torture after hearing the torture of the others.
Women would tend to be more tortured by hearing a child being tortured.

isolation: I have heard being without any human contact will drive a person mad very quickly, I bet the only human contact being the screams of those tortured would magnify the torture even more.

Fantasy:
Maybe a mind reading to find out the victims fears, then focus the torture on their fears.
Maybe a victim is afraid of spiders, use illusions of spiders, real spiders, and exploit the fear to the extreme.

A mage torturer would have special magic to inflict maximum pain with minimal damage, maybe pseudo-electric impulses to the brain that only stimulate the pain receptors, but really cause no harm.
Maybe an illusion of a loved one being tortured(when the loved one could not be obtained.) or even better repeated ilusions followed by the real thing. Just when they are sure its an illusion, they figure out its real, the fears they have lived over and over come true.


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## psychotick (Jun 25, 2013)

Hi,

Lets start with the current topical stuff - waterboarding. This done to simulate drowning, and if you've ever dived too deep into a pool and felt the pain in your lungs as your streak for the surface you'll understand the sensation. It's pure panic as you think you're going to drown. This is what water boarding does, and the fear can be so intense that people have heart attacks, which is why there's always a doctor on hand as far as I've heard. Now some victims go through this multiple times, the reason being not that each time it's going to break out some deep dark secret, but rather to break the will of the victim. It's about filling him with both fear and a feeling of complete helplessness, so that he knows, not intellectually but at the deepest emotional level, that he cannot escape his fate but that sooner or later he will actually drown. At that point the fear is with him constantly and with it the desire to escape it anyway he can. Which means by talking, so the interrogators hope. If they do it right the man will be living in dread and almost dying of a heart attack every time he hears the interrogator's boots in the corridor. 

By the way, for the record I do not consider this "enhanced interrogation" or whatever the PR jargon is. It is torture pure and simple.

The more simple, direct mental part of torture is about shattering a person's self belief. Everyone believes that there are things they won't do, lines they will not cross. We have this belief in ourselve, in our basic goodness and courage etc that is not usually accurate. But until people have been tested this belief will hold. Once someone has been tortured they often start to understand that they aren't as strong and noble as they thought. That there are things they can't abide, and that they will do things to avoid pain and suffering. Usually the torturer will begin by making the victim give up small things. Tell me your partners name. Things that will stop the pain and seemingly not give away anything useful. But little by little the demands become more damaging and the person's resistance slowly crumbles. After all they've already told his name, so now its location and next it'll be the plans for the invasion. Once a man cracks a little it becomes harder and harder to stop.

As well as using pain and fear there is another weapon in the torturer's arsenal - the removal of the sense of reality. People find it harder to hide things if they don't know what's real and what's not. This is why sleep deprivation and certain drugs are used. They don't so much make it impossible to lie as the movies would have you imagine. They make it difficult for the victim to know what's real and what's not. And if you don't know what's real and what isn't you don't know what you should keep secret from who and what you shouldn't.

There's also a version of the Stockholm syndrome that applies peculiarly to torture. This is where the victim begins to rely on the torturer. Begins to trust him. I know it sounds weird. But in essence the torturer little by little becomes the man's whole world. The giver of pain and the bringer of relief. The victim will be ecstatic for every kind word the torturer gives him and live in morbid fear of every harsh one. He will slowly come to believe him when he says he doesn't want to do these terrible things. He's only doing them because he has to and he has to because the victim is on the wrong side etc. In the end he lets his will be subjegated by that of the torturer. Psychologically this is a form of transference.

Of course with every case there are variables. What will break one man will fail completely on another. Everyone has their pressure points, the things that they cannot stand. So for some it will be the pain that does it. For some the fear of drowning or death. For some mutilation as they ask themselves how much more they can stand to lose. Some people will resist for days and weeks. Some people will crack immediately. And a lot of the torturer's art is in finding those weaknesses. Men for example will likely not fear disfigurement so much as women. Women may actually be more resistant to pain, especially those who have been through childbirth. Athletes may fear being crippled more than other injuries.

In torture though there are two rules above all else. Everyone will break given enough time and the right pressure points. And the second is that you hardly ever get the truth. The victim even when he's broken will almost always tell you not the truth but rather what he thinks the torturer wants to hear. So they lie. At first so they don't give away secrets etc. Later to stop the pain.

Cheers, Greg.


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## Aprella (Jun 25, 2013)

Thank you both  You have giving me some interesting ideas!


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## Spider (Jun 25, 2013)

SeverinR said:


> Maybe a victim is afraid of spiders, use illusions of spiders, real spiders, and exploit the fear to the extreme.



Spiders? You mean those fun, loveable creatures that help get rid of mosquitoes and other pests?

Come on, they aren't _that_ bad.


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## CupofJoe (Jun 26, 2013)

Spider said:


> Come on, they aren't _that_ bad.


Yes they are!!!
They are physical manifestation in to this reality of the demons of chaos and all things evil ...
And they have lots of legs ...
And they scuttle really quickly ...
And they hide behind things so you find them when you aren't expecting them ...
and they have lots of eyes that seem to just stare and stare and stare at you ...

I have issues with spiders indoors ...
I have no problems with spiders when they and I are outdoors.


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## Aprella (Jun 26, 2013)

Spiders are creepy... they way they move... uugh. But I don't like six legged (or more) bugs either. 

Will be placing food and water just out of the range of the victim not also some kind of torture? I do think it's pretty cruel when you are thirsty and hungry and can  see, but cannot reach food or water. 
And can someone tell me how much food a day you need to stay alive? And if you get only fed bread how long will it take until you start getting vitamin shortage?


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## SeverinR (Jun 26, 2013)

Alot of people are afraid of spiders, alot.
When in Greece, I didn't worry about the spiders that were above my six foot reach, if they came down I killed them.
Well, except for that spider that wouldn't kill an annoying fly that got caught in its web.  Thats why I kept the spiders, to kill the other bugs.
personally, as long as they aren't in my living space, let them do their job.

I dislike wasps, barely tolerate bees in close proximity.


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## Spider (Jun 26, 2013)

CupofJoe said:


> They are physical manifestation in to this reality of the demons of chaos and all things evil ...



What ever happened to 'appearances can be deceiving?' Or 'don't judge a book by its cover?' The majority of spiders are harmless!


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## A. E. Lowan (Jun 26, 2013)

Spider said:


> What ever happened to 'appearances can be deceiving?' Or 'don't judge a book by its cover?' The majority of spiders are harmless!



Oh, yeah, sure... they're harmless as they run across your face in the middle of the night.  *shudder*  The spider bite I am currently sporting on my left shin that I got while sleeping the other night begs to differ.

And I'm still trying to figure out the one I tossed outside last week that was the same color, size, and MASS as a mouse!


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## A. E. Lowan (Jun 26, 2013)

Aprella said:


> Spiders are creepy... they way they move... uugh. But I don't like six legged (or more) bugs either.
> 
> Will be placing food and water just out of the range of the victim not also some kind of torture? I do think it's pretty cruel when you are thirsty and hungry and can  see, but cannot reach food or water.
> And can someone tell me how much food a day you need to stay alive? And if you get only fed bread how long will it take until you start getting vitamin shortage?



Yeah, that would be good mental torture.  Also, making the victim watch his jailors eat and drink while he is suffering from hunger and thirst.

I think the general rule of thumb is you can survive 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food.  I don't know how long you can go on just bread before you start suffering from vitamin deficiency - the real questions are, is your culture advanced enough to be aware of such things, and do your antagonists really care about such niceties?  Malnutrition is easily reversed in adults, anyway, if it's a plot issue.


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## Spider (Jun 26, 2013)

A. E. Lowan said:


> Oh, yeah, sure... they're harmless as they run across your face in the middle of the night.  *shudder*  The spider bite I am currently sporting on my left shin that I got while sleeping the other night begs to differ.
> 
> And I'm still trying to figure out the one I tossed outside last week that was the same color, size, and MASS as a mouse!



Ask yourself how many humans have been killed by spiders. Now ask yourself how many spiders have been killed by humans. I'm the underdog here!


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## Aprella (Jun 27, 2013)

A. E. Lowan said:


> Yeah, that would be good mental torture.  Also, making the victim watch his jailors eat and drink while he is suffering from hunger and thirst.
> 
> I think the general rule of thumb is you can survive 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food.  I don't know how long you can go on just bread before you start suffering from vitamin deficiency - the real questions are, is your culture advanced enough to be aware of such things, and do your antagonists really care about such niceties?  Malnutrition is easily reversed in adults, anyway, if it's a plot issue.



Hmm thanks for the answer! Well no, the society isn't advanced enough to notice those things. But well I suppose a magical potion could resolves such things as well, if need be. 

@Spider: true... but still! I never kill spiders because I'm too afraid of them... I let someone else do that! If they are in the bath (which happens often...) or in the sink I do dare to drown them.


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## Ivan Sailor (Jun 27, 2013)

The psychological thriller "Unthinkable" is a great source of information not only on methods of physical torture but also psychological ones as well as their moral outcomes. Also, the episodes from Game of thrones in the third season where spoiler* Theon is tortured *end of spoiler are also great sources of information.
Also: Medieval Torture Devices | Cracked.com
Torture | Cracked.com


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## A. E. Lowan (Jun 28, 2013)

Before we got sidetracked by the discussion of spiders, I remembered there is a great scene in the (I think) first episode of Season 2 of _The Borgias_, where a captive prince is forced by the King of France to take him on a tour of his deceased father's infamous torture chambers, with the horrible understanding that the prince will soon be their newest guest.  The King makes him identify and describe, in detail, the uses of each device.  Eventually, the prince is reduced to a sobbing, terrified wreck just at the thought of what these devices will do to him, each in their turn.


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## Aprella (Jun 28, 2013)

Ooh! You don't happen to know exactly which episode?


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## A. E. Lowan (Jun 28, 2013)

I checked IMDB and it is definitely Episode 1 of Season 2.  "The Borgias" The Borgia Bull (TV Episode 2012) - IMDb


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## Aprella (Jun 28, 2013)

Ooh thank you! I will check that out


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