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I think the ultimate purpose of torture is to bring about a clearer distinction of good versus evil. - Kaitlynn
Good men don’t need rules. Now is not a good time to find out why I do. – The Doctor
Most people, most of the time, will agree that most torture is wrong. But there are a few situations where you can convince an alarming number of people that torture can be justified. Typically torture is used in fiction to show the pure villainy of the villain, or to put the character through some kind of trauma with specific results in mind. In real life torture is most frequently used to a) obtain information or b) break a person’s will. It is the former that most “civilized” people will attempt to justify, leaving the latter to brutes and religious extremists. But is torturing for information really justifiable?
The clock is ticking. Lives are at stake, as many as you need in order to tip your moral scales. How many lives will it take? Would you torture to save one life? Ten? A thousand? Why or why not? Why would it be right to torture a man for information to save a thousand lives, but not to save one or two? At what point do the ends justify the means?
When a villain tortures a main character it is the most despicable scene in a book, the most traumatic, and what we hate him the most for. It is a cruel and unthinkable practice, so why would we even consider it from the other point of view? The protagonist wouldn't be much of a protagonist if he was no different from the antogonist; no matter how many lives he saves.
“What will you be? Coward, or killer?”
“Coward. Any day.”
*Doctor Who: The Parting of the Ways
I remember the first Lone Ranger book I read. There were two girls in the hands of the villainous henchmen, and one of the henchmen was a prisoner of the Lone Ranger and refused to divulge their whereabouts. The Lone Ranger knew that it was only a matter of time before the girls were killed, so he beat the truth out of the man with his fists. It’s been years since I read the book, but I remember when the henchman comes back to consciousness he does so with the words, “P-please, don’t let him hit me again.”
“Please, don’t him hurt me again.” Those are the words of the tortured victim, and when we hear them from the lips of a villainous henchman the lines between good and evil begin to blur. The whole point of being a hero is that you do things differently. You believe in a better way. You have morals and you stick to them, regardless of the cost. You wouldn’t change your beliefs under torture; will you change them to commit torture? You wouldn’t reveal information under torture, how can you inflict that on someone else in order to obtain information?
I therefore submit the question, is torture always wrong or only when it is used for a wrong purpose? Carefully consider and question what you believe and what you’ve been told, what you’ve read and what you have written. Do you who judge practice the same things?
*(Romans 2:1)
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Floyd was frozen where he stood. He struggled to breathe, but the air smelled of blood and death and guilt. He tried to formulate a name, to ask, but language was meaningless, and words would not come. He tried to scream but the sound got stuck in his heart, shattered into a million pieces, and scattered to the wind.
In a world without superheroes, who will stand against the forces of evil?
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