Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Difference between revisions

This trope finds some [[Justified Trope|justification]] in [[Real Life]], where the cycle of "[[Troubled Abuser|abusee turns abuser]]" is well known and documented. And that's ignoring how many an anti-hero becomes semi-evil after some sort of tragedy -- emotionaltragedy—emotional pain and trauma, if you will.

* The supplementary materials to ''[[Zeta Gundam]]'' state that {{spoiler|Basque Ohm}}, as a POW after the One Year War, was horrifyingly tortured by the enemy. This definitely contributed to him being a [[Complete Monster]] in the Zeta series. It's also pretty justified, as he didn't join the side that tortured him--insteadhim—instead he takes out his rage on Zeon's former civillians.

* In ''[[Captain America (comics)]]'', Crossbones uses tortures on his brainwashed girlfriend Sin, to bring her back to herself. It worked. Writer has to survive an attack of angry [[Moral Guardians]], pissed off because right after being tortured Sin has sex with her oppressor.

{{quote|'''V''': [[Motive Rant|What they did to me was monstrous.]]<br />

* In the film ''[[Flesh Andand Blood]]'', the innocent virgin [[Damsel in Distress]] gets kidnapped by a group of bandits and gang raped. She then joins their crew and merrily takes part in their excursions.

* Pretty much the entire point of [[SaloSalò, Oror Thethe 120 Days Ofof Sodom]]. {{spoiler|Given that refusing to be turned evil means being gruesomely tortured and executed, although none of the victims know this.}}

** Tolkien was rather ambivalent about this detail; his notes made it clear that he didn't want it to be canon, and it also raises a number of thorny questions about with his mythology. For example, why haven't the number of orcs decreased over time as the originals were killed off? Orcs as corrupted elves also didn't mesh with his cosmology; would dead orcs go to the Halls of Mandos, where normal elves are taken after death, or would they share the fate of Men? The deeply Catholic Tolkien was conflicted over these, along with the concept of [[Always ChaoticExclusively Evil]], which is why he didn't publish the Silmarillion before his death.

** His victims should be noted here--theyhere—they are often left wrecks, miserable and broken. Very far from seeming deserving of the punishment, or evil.

* Folgrim of ''[[Redwall|The Legend of Luke]]'' suffered a variation. He was tortured and blinded in one eye by vermin, and this caused him to become insanely violent and unstable, but his violence was directed towards vermin specifically. Since they're [[Always ChaoticExclusively Evil]] the good guys have no problem with him killing them, but when he starts to ''eat'' them...

* ''[[Supernatural (TV series)|Supernatural]]'': Hell works along this premise. To the extent that once they torture away enough of your previous identity you become a demon, which in this setting are [[Always ChaoticExclusively Evil]], although while all demons are stated to have been once human it's unclear whether all the damned make it all the way to demon. {{spoiler|Dean takes thirty years of torture in the season break he spends in Hell, before he cracks and starts torturing other souls, and enjoying it because it's not being tortured. He blames himself for this intensely. Also notable, they gave him to Hell's chief torturer for most of it; he's a tough cookie, but he gives himself no credit.}}

* ''[[The Colbert Report]]'' once used this in a bit of circular [[Strawman Political]] [[Insane Troll Logic]]: if you're mistaken for a terrorist who hates America and consequently imprisoned in Gitmo and subjected to [[Enhanced Interrogation Techniques]], you'll soon hate America -- andAmerica—and therefore, we'll have to imprison and torture you!

* In ''[[Dungeons and& Dragons]]'', torture in Hell makes bad people worse - after some time they hate their tormentors so deeply that the last remains of their humanity snap and they start to transform into bottom-rank devils themselves.

** [http://www.dlogs.net/monsters/new_65.htm Here]{{Dead link}} D&D continues the process to it's logical conclusion: '....After almost three years of hideous, painful torture, the creature that crawled into the pit a gelugon crawls out of it a pit fiend....'

** In ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' one of Red Wizards' nastiest weapons are "Chosen Ones" -- normal—normal people (usually stubborn slaves) who were forced to undergo excruciating transformation, and when ordered to fight they are deluded to see the foe as [[Berserk Button|the one who transformed them]]. They aren't used in mass because they frequently slip out of control, stop mid-strike and run away, to find the ''real'' wizard whom they want to shred.

** This even includes the [[Big Good|Avatar]], although it takes a very long time. However, since the Avatar is supposed to [[Back Fromfrom the Dead|come back]] when you kill him, if you don't and convert him then his also good twin shows up to fight you.

** Not entirely straight as the guards already think the monsters are [[Always ChaoticExclusively Evil]].

** Also, his first subject was an Owlbear, which according to [[Dungeons and& Dragons|its creature description]] starts out as an aggressive killing machine.

* It's a common belief that murderers, torturers, rapists, and other violent criminals get that way because they were victimized as children. This conventional wisdom is so widespread that it's considered self-evidently true by almost all laymen. ButHowever, a recent study of criminals in the United States shows that convicted felons aren't more likely to have come from an abusive family than the average person. If anything, it's ''victims'' who are more likely to have an earlier background of abuse, especially victims of molestation who are often specifically targeted because they have abusive or neglectful parents. Victims of domestic abuse are three times more likely to have been abused as children than their abusers. Even murder victims are more likely to have been abused as children than murderers.

* This trope might be a [[Dead Horse Trope]] by now. If torture alone made one evil, then survivors of Nazi death camps should have been prime candidates for [[Complete MonsterdomMonster]]dom. So far no data has surfaced about the frequency of evil among survivors.