Lets talk about torture.

[Aprella]

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?

 

[SeverinR]

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.

 

[psychotick]

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.

 

[Aprella]

Thank you both You have giving me some interesting ideas!

 

[Spider]

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.

 

[CupofJoe]

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.

 

[Aprella]

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?

 

[SeverinR]

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.

 

[Spider]

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!

 

[A. E. Lowan]

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!

 

[A. E. Lowan]

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.

 

[Spider]

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!

 

[Aprella]

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.

 

[Ivan Sailor]

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

 

[A. E. Lowan]

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.

 

[Aprella]

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

 

[A. E. Lowan]

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

 

[Aprella]

Ooh thank you! I will check that out