r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Character_Growth_397 • 7h ago
Characters Acknowledging that torture is not an efficient form of interrogation
Torture is often shown as an effective way of interrogation, with writers forgetting one key detail: People lie. AAMOF, it's likely that they will lie and give you untrue information to not be tortured
The Last of Us - Joel has an interrogation map where he'd make two different people point to something on a map. If they both pointed the same thing it meant the info was true. Very often this wasn't the case
Mass Effect 2 - Garrus points out that torture is not effective because victims will lie to make the torture stop
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u/PapaShu1915 7h ago
what's AAMOF mean
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u/OpeningHappy9692 7h ago
IDKBIRAWPJAEAEYTKAI.
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u/GabrielGames69 6h ago
I dont know but I really am worried people just abbreviate everything assuming everyone you tell knows about it?
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u/TheHumanPickleRick 6h ago
How the fuck
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u/GabrielGames69 6h ago
IDKBI is pretty easy and then you just fill in words predicting the meaning of the phrase until all letters line up to a word that makes sense.
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u/IKluke 6h ago
we should make computeralgorithms with this 'word that makes sense' logic. Could be really usefull
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u/GabrielGames69 6h ago
I think an algorithm could reach a phrase that makes sense but I worry it wouldn't be able to verify it fits in context. For example, I dont know but I really am worried P Js are everywhere and everyone yells towards kids about it. Is a sentence that makes enough sense for the acronym without context.
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u/fluffygiraffepenis 4h ago
Close - I Don't Know But It's Really Annoying When People Just Abbreviate Everything And Expect You To Know About It
Source - i work in a company obsessed with abbreviations to the point where some equipment is abbreviated and nobody actually knows what it stands for as its all outdated and the manufacturers are defunct
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u/MysticCherryPanda 6h ago
Bro needs to go on Wheel of Fortune immediately
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u/GabrielGames69 6h ago
I am decent enough about filling in, I just am not good at knowing phrases and references to get the context. Like if it was "movie quotes" or something and I hadn't seen the movie.
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u/endthepainowplz 6h ago
I donât know, but I really always wanted people just aware enough actually enjoying your talent (of) knowing acronyms intimately.
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u/Wrong_Luck_878 4h ago edited 26m ago
And as a matter of fact
I'm pretty sure this is correct, but for the record, I've never seen it before and I think it's stupid as hell.
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u/Character_Growth_397 7h ago
As a matter of fact
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u/Mrsam_25 6h ago
Just say as a matter of fact
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u/SRSgoblin 6h ago
Tfymaamofjttsod
I hope someone can decipher this, lol
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u/PassTheCrabLegs 6h ago
âThe fuck you mean âaamofâ just type that shit out, dudeâ?
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u/xx_ddd 6h ago
AFAIKYNMD
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u/PapaShu1915 4h ago
never in my 35 years upon this god forsaken rock have i ever seen this abbreviation lol
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u/PointyNipple 7h ago
Better Call Saul: When Tuco doesn't believe Saul is just a guy that got in over his head and is about to start torturing him, Saul makes up a lie about being a federal agent on the spot that Nacho sees right through
Tuco: He said he was FBI. He admitted it.
Nacho: You had your wirecutters on him. He would have said anything.
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u/twoscoopsineverybox 6h ago
I would 100% watch a spin off show with Nacho.
Something about how he has to operate in that world why actually having some morals and intelligence.
Unfortunately we already know the ending
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u/TheMikeyC 6h ago edited 5h ago
We must continue the Gilligan Universe of backwards aging people.
Edit: Hold on... Benjamin Button? Breaking Bad? B-B?Â
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u/NiceBeaver2018 6h ago
Iâd pay good money to see a 90 year-old Jonathan Banks portraying Mike in his early 20s about a decade from now.
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u/SpaceTurtles 3h ago
No makeup, no CGI, no stunt doubles (all stunts are performed at Banks' pace, however).
It is never acknowledged by anyone.
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u/CAustin3 6h ago edited 6h ago
Not sure if Youtube documentaries count, but Kurzgesagt After Dark recently did a thing on a particular town's medieval witch burning craze.
Women (and sometimes men, particularly men who spoke out against the witch hunts or took action against them) would be accused of witchcraft and then put into a torture prison. They would be tortured until they "confessed" to witchcraft, after which they would be publicly executed.
The witch hunters knew full well that torture wouldn't elicit the truth, but they also knew that the public believed that it would, which is why they did it. Getting someone to "confess" to witchcraft (after five days of brutal unending torture, out of desperation to do or say anything to get the pain to stop) granted legitimacy to their executions, and they would also demand that the victim name names of other "witches" and accomplices once they broke (which generally was just the victim rattling off lists of everyone they knew, sometimes including public officials and famous people they'd never met).
For whatever reason, whether it's now or 500 years ago, the average person seems to be easy to convince that "confessions" under torture, or other "information" uttered by tortured people, are likely to be true. But now, just like back then, a tortured person says what they believe the torturer wants to hear, regardless of whether that aligns with the truth.
The only time torture is likely to work is when the victim is actually guarding a secret, and where the torturer could easily and quickly test the truth of the secret when revealed (i.e. someone has a code to a safe that's sitting in front of them, and the torturer immediately tests the code when it's given, so the victim knows the torturer will be angry if they're given a lie). In most military situations, the truth of a torture victim's claim cannot be reliably tested in a timely way, and it's often not known if they even have a secret to reveal at all.
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u/stripesnstripes 6h ago
My understanding was that part of the motivation was that if they confessed to being a witch their families claim to their land was forfeit and the church or whoever could seize it. Hence the guy who just kept saying âmore weightâ instead of confessing to make the torture stop.
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u/ScarletKing42 6h ago
Giles Corey, I think.
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u/Electronic_South_101 5h ago
Yep! A lot of people would break under that torture (which, fair, it was horrific), but it sounded like love for his family and the power of spite were able to help him.
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u/Substantial-Shape797 2h ago
Thatâs how it was in Salem. Wouldnât be surprised if they did so in Europe too
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u/Traditional_Yard2741 6h ago
Getting a confession is different from getting information, and the goals of the witch hunters were different. The people running the trials were either true believers, who'd made up their mind well beforehand and the torture was both pleasing to them (because they already believed their victims to be guilty) and intended to add a thin veneer of legitimacy. Or they were politically minded, in which case the same applied but only out of petty politics. In either case, torture is a very useful tool for them, because they have no interest in obtaining an honest confession. They just want to force their victims to say the words.
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u/MandolinMagi 2h ago
t's often not known if they even have a secret to reveal at all.
Exactly. IMO the biggest (non-moral) issue with torture is that you're assuming the victim actually has the answer you're looking for. If you refuse to accept "I don't know" as an answer, you will eventually get something made up.
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u/granitebuckeyes 2h ago
Early modern era had witch hunts, the medieval era rarely did.
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u/diogenessexychicken 6h ago
Its always sunny. Frank waterboards Dee. When asked if it works he responds "i got her to admit to things she didnt even do!"
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u/Electrical-Room-2278 2h ago
He learned about that in 'nam... he went there in the 90's to open a sweatshop
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u/CreepyPastaLover2005 2h ago
(Not so) fun fact, Dees actress was actually waterboarded, the safety measure failed but she still committed to the scene
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6h ago
[removed] â view removed comment
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u/snoodhead 6h ago
It wasnât useless, it did what it was supposed to. Getting the confession is the goal, getting the truth is an afterthought.
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u/MaeBeaInTheWoods 5h ago
It doesn't understand that, it's just a bot. All they do is reword the post title and comment they're replying to together into something that sounds like what a human might say, even if the new statement is just regurgitating information without actually saying anything new.
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u/Life-Challenge1931 6h ago
The ghoul (fallout season 1) He is waterboarding lucy not for info, he is using her as bait
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u/Hammer_of 3h ago
I copied and pasted the transcript in another comment before seeing this, so ill do it again here for posterity sake:
The Ghoul: You know, they used to do these things called "studies." Why, you couldn't open a newspaper without reading about one study or another.
Lucy: [sees her rad meter peaking rapidly]
The Ghoul: Anyway, this one particular study came out, and it said that torturing a person don't do shit. [He dunks Lucy in the lake again, and reels her out] It made sense. I mean, a man hurts me, I wouldn't want to do him any favors. And yet the practice of torture failed to vanish from this earth. In fact, as time marched on, I've personally noticed a decided uptick... in the amount of torture being doled out across the board.
Lucy: Sir, please, I need the head! It's the only way I can get my father back!
The Ghoul: My point is... if you ask me, them studies, they was right. Torturing a person don't do shit.
Lucy: Then why... why are you doing this?
The Ghoul: Well, I ain't torturing you, sweetheart. I'm using you as bait.
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u/Jedi_Scum_587 6h ago
In Burn Notice, Michael Weston says that torture is unreliable, which is the first place where I heard that. Instead he usually goes undercover to get info.
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u/Demoniac_smile 6h ago
My favorite part is that he compares it to using a flamethrower to get groceries.
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u/ZenCyn39 6h ago
A wild Burn Notice mention, wow
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u/LowmoanSpectacular 6h ago
He mentioned it concerningly often. It went from âa reasonable thing to explain to the third-party his inner monologue is forâ to âreminding himself because he kind of really wants to do itâ.
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u/No_Professional4867 4h ago
I think it was more "Almost every spy movie has a torture scene and since this is a syndicated TV show, we need to make sure the audience tuning in to random episodes knows why we don't do that"
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u/Far_Silver 2h ago
I think people who grew up with streaming don't understand that it used to be common to start a series part way through. Your friend recommends a show to you, you watch it the next time it's on, and the episode airing will probably not be the series premiere. Or you surf channels until you find something, again probably not the series premiere.
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u/iwanttobespooned 4h ago
He discusses a lot that interrogation is just as much controlling yourself as it is controlling your target, and sometimes shows the consequences of losing that control.
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u/AporiaParadox 7h ago
Grand Theft Auto V. Depite the brutality of the torture scene, Trevor admits that torture doesn't really work and there are better ways of getting information, and it's really just done for the sake of the torturer or the guy giving the orders to the torturer.
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u/EskildDood 6h ago
The guy getting tortured is some random innocent civilian who happened to install a home theatre system for the guy the bureau is looking for, so he has nothing to hide and constantly expresses that he is open to talk, but the torture just has to happen before every question for some reason
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u/UncommittedBow 5h ago
It's why, on repeat playthroughs, I try to think "okay, what is the LEAST painful thing here". And according to the game, it's waterboarding, since it does the least amount of damage to him, but like...that's still traumatic as shit, there's no real way of going through that mission without fucking that guy up in some way.
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u/doopies1986 5h ago
Yeah IIRC you have to torture the guy at least once. Michael can take the shot immediately after that and bypass the rest of it though
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u/EskildDood 2h ago
On that note I find it really funny how they explain away you already knowing what the target looks like
"What the hell?!"
"That was the guy! I had a feeling. It'll check out."
"Well, we... got him."
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u/AGuyWithTrouble 4h ago
He criticizes torture as a way to gather information. However, Trevor is all in about its recreational use.
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u/Hammer_of 3h ago
The Ghoul in Fallout:
The Ghoul: You know, they used to do these things called "studies." Why, you couldn't open a newspaper without reading about one study or another.
Lucy: [sees her rad meter peaking rapidly]
The Ghoul: Anyway, this one particular study came out, and it said that torturing a person don't do shit. [He dunks Lucy in the lake again, and reels her out] It made sense. I mean, a man hurts me, I wouldn't want to do him any favors. And yet the practice of torture failed to vanish from this earth. In fact, as time marched on, I've personally noticed a decided uptick... in the amount of torture being doled out across the board.
Lucy: Sir, please, I need the head! It's the only way I can get my father back!
The Ghoul: My point is... if you ask me, them studies, they was right. Torturing a person don't do shit.
Lucy: Then why... why are you doing this?
The Ghoul: Well, I ain't torturing you, sweetheart. I'm using you as bait.
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u/gammaton32 2h ago
Also this ties into all the bizarre and sadistic studies that Vault-Tec designed for the vaults
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u/Hammer_of 1h ago
Thats a good point, I didnt even consider that angle. But it makes sense he of all people would have that takeaway.
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u/Koffielurker_ 7h ago
The Blacklist. I don't remember where or when exactly, But I remember Donald Ressler (or someone talking to Donald Ressler) saying that Torture is a pointless cruelty.
The funny thing is, it keeps working in the show. Reddington has a dedicated torture guy, he routinely kneecaps people or shoots them in the foot and always seems to get the information he needs.
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u/Friendly_Gazelle7843 7h ago
Especially if you canât really verify information or if victim knows you will kill them anyway.Â
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u/Top_Conference_477 7h ago
"If you fuckin' beat this prick long enough, he'll tell you he started the goddamn Chicago Fire. Now, that don't necessarily make it fuckin' so!"
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u/Snakebird11 2h ago
"I don't really give a good fuck what you know or don't know. I'm gonna torture you anyway. Not for information. It amuses me... To torture."
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u/ManHamAslume39 6h ago
The Ghoul (Fallout TV Show)
He dunks Lucy into a pond to use her as bait to get the deus ex machina from a monster. When Lucy says torture is wrong, The Ghoul agrees, and says that he isn't torturing her, but is using her as bait.
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u/MisogynysticFeminist 3h ago
The monster has a âMacguffin.â A âDeus Ex Machinaâ is when something random happens to resolve the plot instead of something previously established in the story.
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u/AGQuaddit 2h ago
In the Star Trek: The Next Generation two parter "Chain of Command", Captain Picard is abducted by enemy Cardassian agents while on a clandestine mission. He is interrogated on Starfleet defense plans by one particularly fervent Cardassian, who subjects him to extreme pain, sleep deprivation, and dehumanization. However, Picard refuses to break. When the interrogator continuously shines a series of four bright lights at Picard and asks him how many there are, insisting that there are actually five, Picard repeatedly shouts back that there are only four lights, preventing his enemy the satisfaction of breaking his mind.
At one point, Picard turns the tables on the interrogator, questioning the authoritarian Cardassian government and his place in it. Picard notes that "torture has never been a reliable means of extracting information" expressly because it often produces warped or false results. The implication is that the cruelty is the point. The interrogator, who had revealed himself to be a frightened boy in his youth, was compensating for his fear by exacting terrible punishments on those he deemed opponents of Cardassia.
God I need to rewatch that...
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u/WatchMasterReddick 2h ago
Another detail I love which corroborated his earlier assertion that torture can lead to false data is that at the end of the episode Picard remarks to counselor Troi (i think) that "He was actually starting believe there were five lights" due to the physical and emotional strain from the torture.
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u/scarletboar 6h ago
The Punisher (Daredevil)
As I recall, in Daredevil's second season, Frank is captured and tortured by the Irish mob so they know where to find the money he took from them. Eventually he gives them the location of his van.
As it turns out, Frank knew he would/would be put in this position and planted bombs in that truck, which kill even more of the Irish when they go get the money. Now, Frank would've said that whether he was tortured or not, but it's a good example of information being contaminated even during torture.
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u/EJ_Youngy 6h ago
Trevor Philips in GTA V.
After torturing him, on the ride to the airport, the victim says he would've told them everything of they'd just asked first. Trevor then goes on a rant about how torture is only for sadistic enjoyment and is an INEFFICIENT way of getting info
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u/AporiaParadox 6h ago
Yup, the scene was very brutal, but ultimately I think it got its message across.
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u/radbot027 6h ago
It's probably one of the very few things I've done in a GTA game that genuinely unnerved me
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u/BoringCrab6755 6h ago
I love Trevorâs writing tbh, heâs wacky as fuck but typically spot on about the US gov
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u/Nassuman 6h ago
"Just because you're irrationally paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you."
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u/Terminal_Insomnia_ 6h ago
The crazy thing about torture is that it's not actually the truth that makes it stop, it's just whatever they'll believe. You don't even have an incentive to tell the truth because they may not even believe it.
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u/CranberryWizard 6h ago
"If you fking beat this prick long enough, he'll tell you he started the goddamn Chicago fire, now that don't necessarily make it fking so!"
- Nice guy Eddie, Resevoir Dogs
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u/AnthonyBurleigh 6h ago
Dark knight: Batman beats the shit out of the Joker to find out where Rachel and Harvey are hidden. Turns out Joker was just biding his time to make sure the bombs went off as soon as Bats and the Gotham pd show up. Furthermore, Joker tells Batman the wrong information about which of the two was where. Basically switching them so Batman would think he was saving Rachel when he was saving Dent instead. This sealed Rachel's fate.
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u/PogoStick1987 6h ago
but doesn't Joel's tactic work? Wouldn't it work irl? obviously you'd need 2 people, better if they don't know each other but are of the same faction and knowledge, but getting them to tell you something separately and using that to verify if its true skips the whole "tell you anything to stop the pain" because they CAN'T just tell you anything, they have to match the truth or it keeps going.
I suppose it wouldn't work for higher level victims, they could coordinate a lie in anticipation of something like that, but in Joel's situation, that circumstance is extremely unlikely.
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u/PointyNipple 6h ago
Torture can work in any situation where you have the ability to verify the information quickly, or at least before the torturee gets free (e.g., what is your PIN). But once you have to extend even the slightest amount of faith in them, it loses almost all effectiveness.
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u/Dave13Flame 6h ago
Well, yes and no. There's a couple things in the background.
First is that the people in question actually have the information Joel is looking for. In reality, this is often not the case and you can't know for certain if they know something and are hiding it really well or they genuinely just do not know. This is also when fake information can enter the scene. They may not know what you want to know, so instead they'll make random stuff up and swear by it, just to stop the pain. You'll have no clue whether they know the info and just lied to get you off track, or do not know the info and lied to make the pain stop. It's impossible to tell the difference.
Second is that the people in question are actually willing to give up the information. If said information was actually important to the prisoners, they could lie over and over and even if at some point they tell the truth, you'd never know if it was the truth. What are the odds that both prisoners would point to the same location at the same time? They could point randomly to different locations for days, at which point it'd be likely that multiple positions would be more or less repeated by each prisoner at least once. Your only way to tell if it is real or fake, is to go check it in person.
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u/UncommittedBow 5h ago
There's also the chance that they've received orders to misdirect if they ever find themselves in such a situation. So there's a predetermined response to give.
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u/mankytoes 6h ago
It only wouldn't work if they knew it was a used technique beforehand, and could coordinate a lie, aside from that, seems like a solid tactic, obviously you need two people subdued and time to force both to give an answer.
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u/TheMikeyC 6h ago
Yeah Joel is doing a mix of personal torture but also preying on our innate sympathies for our "tribe", making his victims go through some real mental loops that usually defaults to pure survival.
However, the time we see him use this method anyway he's doing it just to fuck with them. He believes the first person and doesn't even ask the second. He just beats him to death.
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u/TheMaveCan 6h ago
Funny this is that Joel was a tame example compared to the bloodbath that Tommy left behind doing the same thing in the second game
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u/PogoStick1987 6h ago
fr lol. Kinda wish we got to play as Tommy in TLOU2
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u/TheMaveCan 6h ago
Them not doing a DLC following Tommy's time in Seattle interspersed with memories of him and Joel is the only thing that disappointed me
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u/Flint_Vorselon 6h ago
You can in Ps5 and PC version. They added a kind of roguelike, wave based combat mini game called âNo Returnâ where you can play as:
Ellie
Joel
TommyÂ
DinaÂ
Jesse
BillÂ
AbbyÂ
MannyÂ
Mel
MarleneÂ
Lev
YaraÂ
Each character has different loadouts and gimmicks, EG Joel is good at melee and tanky but doesnât have a dodge button like most characters do. Dina is better at crafting, Abby regens health from melee kills etcâŚ
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u/SwordfishOk504 3h ago
Yeah the "Very often this wasn't the case" is odd. Very often when? In the show? In every case where this very specific thing was done?
Seems to me the trope in this thread is "torture doesn't work". the idea that it never works is just as incorrect as pretending it always works.
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u/Careful-Positive-710 3h ago
I havent seen the show, but in the game this tactic actually works. So i was confused too when OP said that lol.
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u/Der_Schubkarrenwaise 6h ago edited 6h ago
>but doesn't Joel's tactic work?
It well better does. One of the most known dilemmata. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma
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u/ElNakedo 6h ago
Not necessarily because you need to still verify the information. Because you don't know who is lying. It just tells you someone is lying or saying whatever to make the pain stop. So you're still stuck with the same problem.
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u/PogoStick1987 6h ago
yeah but that's the point. Joel skipped most of it because he already knew where to go. But in actuality, you can only verify the information if both separately chose the same location. The point of this method would be to keep going until they give in and stick to the same spot. BOTH of them. It's not free of holes obviously, there's a slim chance they could coincidentally point to the same place, but it's more reliable than conventional torture. Especially to people who are neither soldiers nor trained to withstand torture.
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u/spindaz123 4h ago
maybe someone breaks first and points at it but the other doesnt break and points elsewhere and a while later the other breaks and also points there but its too late
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u/StarSword-C 6h ago
Burn Notice basically every time it comes up. Michael compares actual torture to "getting groceries with a flamethrower: it doesn't work and it makes a mess."
Not that the protagonists don't do it on occasion, but it's either useless, or part of another gambit such as a good cop/bad cop routine.
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u/Feminiwitch 4h ago
Garrus is best boy for the kind of wisdom and kindness he displays in these things.
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u/IrishSpectreN7 3h ago
Later in this very same game he gets information out of Harkin by choking him, threatening to break his neck, and then shoots him in the leg lol.
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u/jedisalamander 3h ago
That wasn't because he thought it would be effective, it was just personal lol
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u/IrishSpectreN7 2h ago
I know lol, I'm mostly kidding. The game even acknowledges that it was uncharacteristic of him.
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u/Agreeable-Abalone328 6h ago
Usually Batman just scares the shit out of people to get them to talk
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u/Xaero_Hour 6h ago
OP is looking for the opposite so this should be the times other DC heroes try to do a Batman. Like Flash dangling a criminal out a window only for him to be completely nonplused the entire time and Superman's several failed attempts at being bad-cop in Justice League. The best being Justice League Action when Batman is actually there trying to be good-cop as well and him being nice freaks the guy out so badly he confesses.
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u/UncommittedBow 5h ago
Or whatever the fuck he whispered to Deadshot that had even CLARK go "You don't wanna know" when asked what Bruce said
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u/ChemistryActive6957 6h ago
Torture is actually reliable under exactly two circumstances. If you can quickly and easily verify the information which is very situational, like getting the password to a device out of someone because you can type the answer in and check in a few seconds. Or if you have a completely reliable method of detecting lies which requires literal magic, meaning torture is really only viable in fantasy settings since polygraphs and other technological methods of lie detection rely on vital signs and the vitals of someone in that much pain are already fucked and the data is useless.
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u/Anoobis100percent 6h ago
Even the first is no guarantee, because torture is well known for making people misremember out of stress and/or fucking up their memories. Like, to the point where afterwards the victim themselves might not be sure what is and isn't true. So, even in the optimal scenario you described, you might still not get your code AND might cause the victim to forget it as well, ruining any chance you had of getting past that code.
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u/CapableCollar 5h ago
This exact post keeps getting repeated on reddit despite even organizations like the CIA disagreeing. Torture confuses people, they don't know what they actually remember as the truth and will just give answers. Even if you can easily and immediately verify information tortured people are not in a good mental state, it is why it is very easy to pass anti-torture training organizations and it's basically just hazing these days.
Reliable information comes from things like deception and bribery.
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u/Character_Growth_397 6h ago
I mean, even if you were sitting in front of a police officer interrogating your heart rate would be going through the roof even if he didn't lay a finger on you
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u/Anoobis100percent 6h ago
Yup. Anyone tries to tell you they've got you hooked up to a functional lie detector, you call their lying ass out then and there.
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u/ChemistryActive6957 6h ago
Yeah sure, polygraphs work best with a subject who doesnât know much about interrogation and with an interrogator who knows how to use actually effective techniques. What Iâm saying is that if you are torturing someone then the baseline vitals you took before beginning are useless because a: their vitals would have been elevated out of fear and anxiety and b: now that you have been hurting them for a while their heart rate and breathing are going to be even faster and it will be almost impossible to tell if a change is due to them lying or the pain and fear.
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u/extinct_cult 5h ago
Polygraphs don't work at all; there's a reason why they're not admissible evidence. It's because it's a pseudoscience.
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u/weeeeelaaaaaah 2h ago
You missed quite possibly the most common use of torture: it's extremely reliable for obtaining false confessions. If, for example, you need to throw someone in prison to close the case on a crime ordered by the fearless leader.
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u/crescentmoonrising 6h ago
The weevils scene in Welkin Weasels is based on the rats scene from 1984, but instead of getting someone to betray someone else, it's getting them to confess to crimes they couldn't possibly have committed.
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u/kinnay047 5h ago
A song of ice and fire
Throughout the series torture is only used by villains to get false confessions and characters constantly point out how unreliable it is.
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u/Agreeable-Abalone328 6h ago
In an episode of the walking dead they have to interrogate a whisperer and instead of torturing him they give him the first real food heâs had in years and he starts crying
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u/LuciusCypher 6h ago
Wasnt this method also something some nazi intelligence officer used to get a lot of legit info? Despite working at a concetration camp he let his prisoners have real food, rest, nature walks, even alcohol. He got a lot of legitimate information out of it in a few hours that others couldnt get with days of torture.
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u/ProfionWiz 6h ago
In a case of history we have the Romans who believed the opposite and confession of slaves were only admissable in courts If torture was employed. Diferent rules for the Citizen though
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u/M-Shadowtoad 6h ago
Helluva Boss: When threatened with torture, Moxie questions what kind since physical torture would just make them lie about what they think their torturers want to get the torture to stop.
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u/Tight_Contact_9976 6h ago
Or they they might like it and then their captors would have a bigger problem
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u/NuclearForce09 6h ago
I was thinking exatly the same playing Red dead redemption 2, in the First hours you take a young man and let him starving, Dutch say that a hungry man tell the truth, fuck no, an hungry man is a desperate man, he will do everything, even lie.
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u/elmartin93 3h ago edited 3h ago
Burn Notice. One of the show creators said they wanted this show to be the antithesis of shows like "24" which showed torture as an effective interrogation method. Burn Notice repeatedly goes out of its way to show and explain how information obtained via torture is dubious at best since the person being tortured is going to tell the torturer what they think they want to hear in order to make the pain stop. The protagonist, Michael Weston, explains in voiceover "Using torture to obtain information is like using a flamethrower to go grocery shopping. All it does is make a mess."
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u/CatrionaShadowleaf 3h ago
So many years later and I can still hear his voice. I don't know why he didn't become a bigger star.
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u/kirbyverano123 6h ago
I do you one better. That one trope where the interrogated is tortured anyways regardless if it's the truth or not because it's not the information the interrogator wants to hear.
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u/RadicalRealist22 6h ago
Torture is effective if you ask for information you can verify.
Any method of interrogation is useless if you cannot verify the information.
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u/Equivalent-Yam6331 6h ago
If you can immediately verify AND if you know for a fact that the person knows the answer. It is pointless to torture someone just to have them make shit up just for a chance you leave them alone.Â
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u/Anoobis100percent 6h ago
Also, even if you can verify the information, torture is infamous for causing lapses in (or damage to) memory.
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u/Available-Half-40 3h ago
Even then, not really. Torture inflicts extreme trauma on a person, and extreme trauma can wipe away memories. Theoretically, you could torture someone into forgetting the information you're after.
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u/Bellpow 6h ago
Kuze torturing Tachibana (Yakuza 0)
They beat him senseless but still doesnât reveal where Makoto is so he tells his and tried to find another way to get him to talk before his right hand man smashes him across the face with a sledgehammer and kills him and Kuze kills him for that
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u/LarrySupreme 6h ago
I'll give it to Joel though. It makes sense in theory, lol.
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u/BroughtBagLunchSmart 5h ago
24 was invented specifically to convince flyover boomers that torture works. All the bad guys give up everything when tortured, Jack Bauer never does because he is a proud America Patriot. Remember when the Bush administration was the most fascist group to run the country?
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u/MostlyAlways47 5h ago
In the first law trilogy one of the characters we follow is called sand dan glockta he is a member of the inquisition and tortures people for a living.
It shows that torture is indeed an efficient form of interrogation. If what you need is a confession of wrong doing regardless of that person's innocence of guilt.
Over the course of the series he tortures many innocent people into giving him a confession despite knowing they are innocent of any crime.
I think this encapsulates the true reason behind torture prisons like Guantanamo Bay they provide later justification for the barbaric practice. Rather than getting actionable information their sole purpose is gaining confessions to justify their existence and seem like they are productive.
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u/Responsible_Tutor823 2h ago
It's often a forgotten detail of this entire scene, but Batman massively fails at this interrogation. He tortures the Joker, at which point he "gives up" the location of Rachel and Harvey Dent. Except he switches the locations and breaks out while Batman and the GCPD are focused on that.
The torture fits perfectly into his plan, might have been part of it. YMMV but maybe if he hadn't tortured the Joker he might have thought "wait what if this scheming villain with multiple backstories for his face is lying to me when he tells me something he can tell I want to know" but as often happens once torture is applied the possibility of bad intel is minimised if not outright discarded.
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u/Agreeable-Abalone328 6h ago
In attack on titan they do torture this guy but eventually get him to talk by tricking him into thinking his buddy already talked
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u/Hanako_Seishin 6h ago
So innocent of you to assume they want truth when they torture you. They just need to close the case, duh. Finding real criminals takes effort, torturing innocents until they confess brings enjoyment, which do you think they will choose?
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u/RonnocKcaj 4h ago
it's pretty neat that media, especially media made for kids, had a significant uptick in sections where torture was a successful interrogation method after 9/11. what a fun coincidence!
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u/TrioOfTerrors 3h ago
Mr Blonde - Reservoir Dogs
He openly admits he doesn't vare if the cop knows anything, he's going to torture him for fun because he hates cops.
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u/Ertymaxer456 3h ago
In 1984, Winston is psychologically and physically tortured for being involved in thought crime against the Ingsoc (the big brother's party), during an unknown period of time, maybe days, maybe weeks, until the point that the simple gesture of a guard making a fist towards him in intimidation has him confessing horrible crimes he has never committed or done ever just so he doesn't get tortured more.
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u/Driekan 6h ago
Mass Effect is a bit of a sad example because the exact same game shows a dirty cop employing the same methods, but because that cop is useful to the PoV character, no one bats an eyelash.
Having no option to arrest Bailey will forever be one of my top pet peeves with that franchise.
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u/Reasonable-Island-57 6h ago
Heard from someone in the special forces that for torture to work and get them to tell the truth is for the torture to not be long and drawn out, but very fast and very painful, and making it clear that if they lie, they'll do it again but not stop. The method used should target pure instinct, which is why waterboarding is considered effective, the amygdala instantly does whatever it takes to stop the drowning and if they know telling the truth about what they want to know will do it the brain overrides any desire to keep the info secret.
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u/FrostyStandard7577 6h ago
fr that garrus line in mass effect 2 is spot on, people will just say whatever to make the pain stop so the info is completely useless. joel's map thing in tlou is a great example of this too since people just point at random stuff hoping it's right.
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u/ChristianLW3 6h ago
Ramsay Bolton - Game of Thrones
He acquires all the information he needs from Theon by pretending to be a servant who helps him escape. Afterwards, Mr. Greyjoyasked why he still being tortured and Ramsey admits that this is just for fun
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u/PygmeePony 6h ago edited 6h ago
Torture is almost never used to get the truth but to get the victim to confess whatever the torturer wants them to confess.
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u/IAmNotModest 6h ago
GTA V - Trevor tells the guy he tortured for information to go tell people that torture isn't a good way to get information.
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u/hospitalcottonswab 6h ago
"If you fucking beat this prick long enough, he'll tell ya he started the goddamn Chicago fire, now that don't necessarily make it FUCKING SO!"
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u/myoung2000 6h ago
In the anime World Trigger, after capturing a combatant from another world, it is discussed how torture is very ineffective because the tortured party can just lie.
They mention that torture is really only effective if you have many subjects to torture, and even then you're really only patching together small consistencies between stories. You still won't receive a lot of credible information.
Ironically, this is talked about by Yuma Kuga, a character who has the ability to detect lies, half truths, and incomplete stories, which should make torture at least a bit more viable.
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u/MajorInWumbology1234 5h ago
Boondocks - Looking for the Xbox killer to exonerate Tom, Ed and Rummy spend all day beating people and threatening them with guns and donât find any information.
Huey and Riley, meanwhile, got the address and a map to the address by just asking people and had been waiting for Ed and Rummy for a long time by the time they got done with their methods.
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u/Neurospicy_Nightowl 4h ago
I love this because I hate it when they present this alleged moral dilemma of "Should we use evil torture and get results or be nice and not get results", which is not how shit works.
Crossing a moral line does not automatically make you more efficient, oftentimes it just makes you an asshole.
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u/Professor_Gucho 3h ago
MGSV:Phantom Pain Ocelot, Kazuhira, and Venom (mostly ocelot) are torturing Huey so he confesses to the location of the Metal Gear Sahelanthropus. The issue is, we've already discovered where they're storing it. So, why are they torturing Huey for the information? This serves at least two purposes. It allows them to establish Huey as a liar, someone that motherbase can't trust the word of and easy to scapegoat while also programming Huey with a false reality. When they get the confession out of him they don't stop the torture, they make sure he really believes what he's saying. It's so effective that when you actually go to the location that he lied about, he's completely surprised at Sahelanthropus' absence "it HAS to be here!" He'll say. He really believes what he says, and who can blame him. He's not the only person living a lie. Although I guess in this case, torture was effective. Just not at getting someone to tell the truth
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u/MFZozzy 3h ago
In The Gentlemen Season 2, Eddie's, the main character's house is attacked by mercenaries.
They manage to capture one of them, and Eddie starts torturing the merc, demanding to know who hired them.
The merc cannot provide the info, bc he wasn't the one in contact with their client, he's just a hired gun not the squad leader.
Eddie starts asking him if it was Bobby Glass who hired them - the merc seeing the opportunity to end the suffering quickly latches on the straw unwittingly offered to him, and confirms with great enthusiasm that it Bobby was their client.
Because neither Eddie, nor his gamekeeper Geoff are experienced gangsters, they don't get that it's a confession of desperation, and is not valid information.
Later, the daughter of Bobby and former colleague of Eddie, Suzie Glass is called over to verify whether it was her father who put out the order on them. Suzie asks to hear the info from the mouth of the prisoner himself, and asks him, if during the initial meeting of the squad and Bobby, was Bobby's daugther, Suzie Glass there?
The merc is obviously confused why this lady he's never seen before is asking him such a weird question, but when a gun is held to his temple, he confirms that "little" Suzie was there as well, and she had such a lovely smile, and good sense of humor. Suzie, the ice queen of the weed business.
Suzi not only proved to Eddie that they weren't behind the hit on them, but also taught him that torture does not yield valid results.
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u/SmokeyUnicycle 3h ago edited 2h ago
It's funny how people have a five year old's understanding of torture.
Torture is extremely effective at making people say whatever they think will make the pain stop.
If they know what you want to know, they'll almost always tell you.
If they don't know what you want to know they'll start making things up to try and get you to stop, even if only for a moment.
Very very few people are capable of resisting torture as in knowing the information but refusing to divulge it.
IRL its rare to know what your victim knows with any level of certainty so randomly torturing people is mostly going to produce random desperate lies, but in media its extremely common for someone to 100% know the information you need.
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u/Pilchowski 2h ago
Weirdly, Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader.
In the Void Shadows DLCs, there's a scene where you're investigating a murder on board your ship, and your character speaks to a witness one of your ship enforcers brings to you. They've tortured him in such a way that Heinrix, the Interrogator (a.k.a. a member of secret police who believe innocence proves nothing and are more than comfortable with torture) chastises the enforcers for them for doing it for their own satisfaction. To be clear, this is 40k, so he didn't chastise them for the torture, but their incompetence in doing it.
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u/T10rock 6h ago