r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Character_Growth_397 • 8h ago

Characters Acknowledging that torture is not an efficient form of interrogation

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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/AGuyWithTrouble 5h ago

He criticizes torture as a way to gather information. However, Trevor is all in about its recreational use.

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u/Capable-Grab5896 1h ago

It's such a confused moment in overall confused arc of Trevor as a character. It makes no sense, they acknowledge it makes no sense, and try to make Trevor look wise while also seemingly disregarding his own wisdom. Always felt to me like they just wanted to do an edgy torture scene for outrage-baiting and dress it up for plausible deniability at the same time. Like they could have just made Trevor crazy and sadistic. They could have also made him anti-government(anti-Bush specifically) and make a political statement about torture. Felt like they were virtue-signalling and pandering to everyone at once. Lowest moment of the game for me.