Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Need someone to [[Face Heel Turn]], but the individual is uncooperative? No worries, just strap him/her to a table and go to town for a while. That's right, if you inflict enough pain on someone, they WILL turn evil. Somehow. Sometimes [[Hand Wave|handwaved]] by throwing the word 'brainwashing' around, but more often than not, it comes down to this simple theory: Pain is bad, so if you add enough pain to someone, they become bad!

Though you have to wonder... why does it tend to make them loyal as well? You'd think the newly evil victim [[The Dog Bites Back|might turn their newfound lack of morality toward the guy that did this to them, preferably in a manner similar to what the villain did to them]]. [[Stockholm Syndrome]] might factor in depending on how the torture was inflicted. In some cases, also, the torture was so horrific as to give the torturer a psychological hold on the victim, terrifying into obedience. Also, sometimes the the newly evil victim ''isn't'' loyal to their torture, but is still evil all the same and is just lashing out at everyone.

 

 

As a literary device, it has two handy uses: It counts as a severe [[Kick the Dog]] (or [[Moral Event Horizon|worse]]) for the original villain, AND creates a tear-jerking [[Tragic Monster|Tragic Villain]].

 

 

* Most of the Diclonius in (the necessarily shortened anime form of) ''[[Elfen Lied]]''. Though at the very least the evil one that was on her tormentors' side had an [[Explosive Leash]] to keep her in check.

* Griffith of ''[[Berserk]]'' is a marginal example. While his torture did leave him permanently maimed, that by itself wasn't enough. After his rescue by the Band of the Hawk, his heart broke when it became clear they weren't willing to carry around a mute, immobile lump of a former leader, but he thought he still had Casca on his side. It was learning that Casca not only agreed with the rest of the band on his uselessness, but was ''in a relationship with his former protege Guts'', that finally sent him past the [[Despair Event Horizon]]. TL;DR: The torture just got the ball rolling; it was the ''aftereffects'' that sent him over the edge.

* More than a few [[Hentai]] titles involve good female characters being repeatedly raped, and they join the side of their tormentors against their fellow good guys/schoolgirls/etc.

** Not mentioning all those with evil female characters being controlled by being repeatedly raped by their male colleagues. Rape happens a ''lot'' in [[Hentai]] in general.

** [[The Messiah]] Judai later proves that a character with [[Incorruptible Pure Pureness]] is, in fact, not immune from being driven evil by pain.

* Riful in ''[[Claymore]]'' really likes trying to do this, although she isn't especially successful.

** It works ''in theory'' because she's only trying to provoke the Claymore's into releasing their full yoma power and becoming Awakened Ones; it's an almost completely physical event and what they want doesn't factor into it. Although Claymores fear awakening more than anything else, once they awaken they tend to immediately find [[Evil Feels Good|they enjoy the power and freedom from humanity]], which [[Justified Trope|justifies this trope]]. Riful just tends to have bad luck; the first Claymore she tried it on died from the torture, the second worked but turned into an Awakened One too weak to be any use so she killed it and the third was rescued before her mind fully awakened.

* [[Creepy Twins|Hansel and Gretel]] from ''[[Black Lagoon]]'' are a somewhat unique case in that they're children, and were ''raised'' under torture and abuse and implied rape as opposed to being decent people who were warped by it. So here it's less "Torture Makes You Evil" and more "Being Surrounded By Pain and Suffering Practicallly Since Birth With No Other State Of Being Known To You Other Than Pain Makes You ''Fucked Up''."

* Genkaku from ''[[Deadman Wonderland]]'' was revealed to have been beaten and raped by a group of bullies who hung around the temple when he was younger. It was definitely a contributing factor for making him [[Ax Crazy]] and evil.

* Ciel from [[Black Butler]] is possible an example of this, going from an innocent child to a cold-hearted one who's dearest wish in life is to torture and kill the people the people who did it to him.

* [[Rival Turned Evil|Sasuke]] from ''[[Naruto]]'' is possibly an example of this. Not only did his own beloved brother [[Moral Event Horizon|slaughtered their entire family]] he also [[Forced to Watch|made Sasuke watch it for what seemed like a full day]]. And after [[Ineffectual Loner|Sasuke]] was actually able to accept his teammates as his friends Itachi did it again to him for apparently no other reason than wanting him to suffer.

 

== Comic Books ==

* [[The Joker]] attempts this on Commissioner Gordon in ''[[The Killing Joke]]'' in true dramatic Joker style, complete with a [[Circus of Fear]] and [[Crowning Music of Awesome|an annoyingly catchy showtune]]. {{spoiler|It fails.}}

* [[Transformers|Unicron]] does this in order to acquire the services of Nemesis Prime; he finds a dead Optimus Prime somewhere in the multiverse, clones the corpse, and then horrifically tortures the clone for several thousand years. It works.

** Unicron goes the extra mile. He tortures his thralls to the point where merely ''existing'' is unbearable agony to them. Which makes his [[Omnicidal Maniac|philosophy]] appealing merely because it'd be an end to such pain.

* Cinder from Deathstroke's ''[[Teen Titans (Comic Book)|Titans]]'' was sexually abused by a super villain called Nursery Crime when she was a child, some time after her entire family died in an explosion. With her heat powers she goes after child molesters and rapists, and is also suicidal because her powers prevent her from dying. [[Flat Character|That's her entire character.]]

* In ''[[Fantastic Four]]'' #600, it's revealed that this apparently happened to {{spoiler|Johnny Storm.}}

 

== Film ==

* ''[[V for Vendetta]]'': For given quantities of Evil, we have this back and forth:

'''Evey''': [[Shut UP, Hannibal|And so they created a monster?]] }}

** Note that the [[Shut UP, Hannibal]] is actually used ''for'' V, because Evey is convinced he isn't a bad person.

* In ''[[Super 8]]'', it's eventually revealed {{spoiler|that the monster is an alien who's been experimented on and tortured by the military for decades, to the point that it views all humans as threats and is willing to [[Kill All Humans|kill them all]].}}

 

== Literature ==

** Averted with the [[Anti-Villain]] Maedhros: his being tortured (hung by his right hand from a cliff for a couple of years) only made him more badass. Though he did become something of a villain, it was for entirely different reasons.

** Also averted with Hurin. After watching what Morgoth's curse did to his family, did he set out on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]]? No, he killed exactly one dwarf - Mim, who betrayed his son to the orcs and was arguably asking for it. Then he bitched out his son's foster-father and left. Of course, things went to hell anyway...

** A straight example would be Maeglin- although he was definitely jealous of Tuor beforehand, it was only being captured and tortured by Morgoth that caused him to spill the location of Gondolin and try to kill Tuor and his son Earendil.

** In ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', Gollum was evil to begin with, but after being tortured by Sauron he became worse.

* In ''Chosen'', the Antichrist starts out as an [[Anti-Anti-Christ]]... until his "dad" and some demons torture and rape him for several years. Then he becomes a proper Antichrist. Somehow.

* More of a dark [[Anti-Hero]] than necessarily evil, but Inquisitor Glokta in ''[[The First Law]]'' series was a noble "golden boy" until he was horribly disfigured by torture. At which point, he accepted a job as a [[Torture Technician]].

* ''[[X Wing Series]]'': Ysanne Isard, Director of Imperial Intelligence, has a secret prison called the Lusankya. She captures people, brainwashes them, and turns them into unwitting agents, letting them free afterwards to go back to the New Republic, completely unaware of what's happened to them [[Manchurian Agent|until they find themselves doing her will]]. The process of converting people is never detailed in full, but it does involve torture. Tycho Celchu went through this and remembers being in that prison when he's let go. When he reports back he's suspected to be one of the unwitting agents even though he remembers being there. {{spoiler|But he was [[Incorruptible Pure Pureness|immune]].}}

* ''[[Legacy of the Force]]'': Jacen Solo does this to Ben Skywalker, in an attempt to turn him to the dark side, and make him his first apprentice.

** Speaking of Jacen Solo, his time as a prisoner of the torture-happy [[New Jedi Order|Yuuzhan Vong]] is widely held to have contributed to his own eventual turn to the dark side.

* {{spoiler|Thomas Raith}} in the eleventh book of ''[[The Dresden Files]]'', is hideously tortured by the Skinwalker. While he had spent the previous books finding ways to sate his hunger without harming anyone, this event makes him reconsider whether it's worth it. In his next appearance, he's as good and friendly as he had been, but still decidedly well-fed. In the following book, he has apparently undergone a sort of hunger strike/[[Heroic BSOD]] after {{spoiler|Harry's death}}.

* [[Neil Gaiman]]'s short story "Other People" in which a businessman is tortured by a demon, first physically with two hundred and eleven different devices, then mentally with all his lies and misdeeds and their consequences over and over until he can no longer lie his way out of them. When it is done, the demon is gone, and [[Stable Time Loop|a businessman comes in]]...

** Well, Murtagh and Thorn don't exactly like being Galbatorix' right hand. They both hate him. But Murtagh is also angry at the world in general and has no problem lashing out at former friends. The loyalty-to-evil is enforced via threat of mind rape and/or torture - at one point Murtagh says something along the lines of "Do you have any idea what he'll do to me if I fail?"

* Volkov, Russian chief vampire from Alexander Yang's [[Midnight World]], became a victim of extremely unjust court in a very young age. He was cruelly tortured to extract the evidence against his father, and almost died, when his Master showed him the way to survival and revenge.

* Inverted in ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'' with {{spoiler|Theon. Previously teetering dangerously close to [[Complete Monster]] levels and a definite [[Smug Snake]], the brutal torture he receives at the hands of the series' resident [[Bastard Bastard]] leaves him frail both physically and mentally and, while not a good person, leagues away from the outright villain he'd been before.}}

** The verse epos ''Lokasenna'' (Loki's taunting of the gods) however describes how the sea god Aegir aroused Loki's ire by holding a big feast at his hall and inviting everyone in Asgard except Loki; when Loki crashed the party and started angrily taunting the assembled gods and goddesses, Loki not only insulted several of them with sarcastic banter about their various not-so-brave deeds but also bragged how he bedded many of the goddesses while their husbands were away. Enraged, the gods tried to kill Loki, who had to flee. When the gods finally captured him, they transformed one of Loki's sons into a raging wolf who tore the other son apart in front of Loki and Loki's Aesir wife, then used the sons' entrails as chains to bind Loki to a boulder in a cave until he couldn't move, ''then'' they hung a poisonous snake over his exposed face that drooled acidic poison into Loki's eyes day and night; after the gods had left Loki's loyal wife spent days and nights holding up a bowl over Loki's face to catch the poison, but whenever she went outside to empty the bowl, the agony of pain made Loki tear madly against his chains (which caused earthquakes). He manage to free himself in time for Ragnarök and joined the tribes of giants, his own monstrous children, and the ship of the dead that came sailing from Helheim in their battle against the gods of Asgard. - Which makes this trope [[Older Than Print]], depending on if you believe Loki was always secretly evil or if his mind snapped during the torture.

** Loki could be kind to his followers at times, as told in the very few remaining stories about him. So he's not always depicted as totally evil.

* {{spoiler|Peeta}} was tortured and [[Brainwashed and Crazy|brainwashed]] by the Capital in [[Hunger Games|Mockingjay]]. While he wans't exactly [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds|evil]], his vision of [[I Reject Your Reality|reality]] was so screwed that he {{spoiler|tried to kill Katniss.}}

 

== Live-Action TV ==

** Another example {{spoiler|Anna was one of the few good angels, before she was captured and tortured by other angels. She describes it as the same torture as hell, but twice the self-righteousness. She comes out of it little crazy and is now fighting against Sam and Dean, but comes off as a [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]]}}.

** It's amusingly like the D&D system.

* In ''[[Firefly]],'' this can happen to you at the hands of the Reavers. Even though the original Reavers were created by a drug that made them go berserk, they can produce exactly the same effects in other people simply by making people ''watch'' them do their Reaver thing. Apparently, it's a form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

** It's implied that this happened to {{spoiler|Christy, Billie's sister}} since she was kidnapped by demons when she was six years old.

* In ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'', the Wraith can do this to turn the boldest humans to lawful servants. They did this to {{spoiler|three Satedan friends of Ronon}} and later {{spoiler|even Ronon himself}}. It also helps that the victims become addicted to the enzyme used in feeding, which makes the one addicted exercise extremely poor judgement.

* Though nearly all vampires in ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' are evil, Drusilla is more fond of slow torture than most, probably because of the way she was tortured extensively before she was turned.

* ''[[Veronica Mars]]'': {{spoiler|MY NAME IS CASSIDY!}}

* ''[[Legend of the Seeker]]'' loves this trope, much like the books it was based on. The Mord'Siths' strength and devotion to eeeevil comes from having the good tortured out of them as kids. And it works on Cara ''again'' {{spoiler|when she's tortured back to the dark side by Darken Rahl}}.

* ''[[Seven Days]]''; one episode centered around a Presidential candidate whom time-traveler Frank Parker [[Set Right What Once Was Wrong|rescued from an assassination attempt]]. The candidate offered Frank a position in his campaign team. Later, Frank learned that the candidate had been tortured by Chinese soldiers during the Vietnam War. As President, he planned to destroy a US Navy vessel, implicate China and declare war, with the ultimate goal of [[Complete Monster|killing the entire population of China]].

 

== Music ==

* Tripod's "Suicide Bomber" is somewhere between this and [[Then Let Me Be Evil]]. The singer is repeatedly tortured in an unsuccessful attempt to make him confess to a bombing he didn't commit. By the end, he's patiently awaiting his release so he can suicide-bomb a bus, knowing full well that another innocent person will probably be tortured and made to confess to the crime. (This is completely [[Played for Laughs]].)

 

== Tabletop Games ==

*** Uh, those guys who go into the pit are already one step from being the epitome of [[Lawful Evil]]... that is, they are supposed to strive to that end ''with distinction'' for several millennia or so. As to others, there was "fiends ''want'' to be fiends, even if one is in puny form, they just want to be greater ones".

 

== Video Games ==

* In the first ''[[Dungeon Keeper]]'' game, you can torture captured heroes into joining your side. As long as you're careful not to kill them (which turns them into fairly mediocre Ghosts), anyone will break eventually...

** Enemy Mistresses, however, doesn't join your forces because your torture have broken their spirits. [[Too Kinky to Torture|They happily and willing join you out of gratitude for being tortured]].

** It works the same way in the sequel, though torturing your enemies to death now causes them to reveal map information to you instead of turning into Ghosts.

** The character in question was on the path before that, seeing as how {{spoiler|her love interest,}} a genuinely good, innocent person, was executed by the bloodthirsty populace demanding justice. It's not hard to imagine {{spoiler|her falling, seeing as how her patron deity's portfolio is, specifically, justice.}}

*** Taken back in the second add-on, Hordes of the Underdark, where {{spoiler|Aribeth states that her affection for Fenthick was more due to her devotion to her faith than because of her love for him - or, as she states it: "it was like being married to my church" (she was a paladin of Tyr, he was a priest). So her decision to defect was not because she went insane from grief but rather out of her own wantonness.}}

* In ''[[Diablo]]'' lore, the angel Izual was captured by the forces of evil and tortured until he became evil.

** Of course, {{spoiler|after you kill him he reveals that he was evil all along, and was the one who kicked off the entire 'Soul Stone' thing with the direct intention of helping The Three.}}

** Laughing Octopus both plays it straight and inverts it; she was kidnapped by a cult and forced to torture her family and friends to death, and said cult also forced her to react as though she took sadistic amusement in their suffering when committing the action.

** Raging Raven plays it completely straight; she was locked in a cage and tortured for the amusement of a band of soldiers until she came to hate the world, and when she was finally freed, she went on an [[Unstoppable Rage]].

** Screaming Mantis is a slight variation; she was locked in a basement beneath a torture chamber, and driven insane by the sound of screams echoing above her. The kicker? The chamber ''housed the dead corpses of torture victims''.

* Saavedro from the third ''[[Myst]]'' game was tied to a post, severely beaten, and was left on several small islands for 20 years, while believing that his family, nay, his entire world was dead. His mind is...not where it used to be, as evidenced by passages in his journal detailing how much he had forgotten and how desperate he was for revenge.

** Though it's not so much that he lost his morals as that he lost his self-control. He even [[I Cannot Self-Terminate|wants you to kill him.]]

* Averted in ''[[World of Warcraft]]''. The Lich King tries to torture Bolvar Fordragon after capturing; {{spoiler|It doesn't work, and Bolvar actually ends up replacing him.}}

** After a long questchain in Coldarra {{spoiler|Keristrasza is taken captive by Malygos and forced to become his consort as a replacement for Saragosa who Keristrasza and the player character had killed. The players then [[Mercy Kill]] her after she's proven herself too insane to be saved from death and too much of a threat to be allowed to live, because going on a mass murdering rampage was a likely outcome.}}

** Partly played straight with {{spoiler|Maiev Shadowsong}} after {{spoiler|her}} capture and torture at the hands of {{spoiler|Illidan Stormrage}}. While {{spoiler|she}} does go crazy and start metting out {{spoiler|her}} own brand of justice, the torture is only the last straw that takes {{spoiler|her}} over the edge of sanity.

** It wasn't just being imprisoned by the Gittish Empire; it was also the fact that he had been sold out by the very town that had taken him in, including his lover. Apparently, she wasn't in on the plan to have Corvus arrested, believing she was subduing him with a sleeping potion because she and him were to hide at a nearby lake, and his [[Chronic Hero Syndrome]] would have caused him to ditch the hiding spot. He didn't realize this, and thought she was also betraying him. The betrayal and torture filled Corvus with so much hatred and grief that he eventually came to hate the mortal realm and all its inhabitants; all of Corvus' negative emotions became so strong that he [[One-Winged Angel|turned into some sort of demon]] with the strength to {{spoiler|rend the very heavens asunder with enormous dark energy beams}} and [[Nintendo Hard|use the sickeningly powerful Magic Burst spell in battle]]. It was the betrayal that made him evil, and the torture that made him [[Big Bad|powerful]].

** Although he's not exactly "evil", this is a lot of how Fenris got the way he is. After being put through a ritual that burned Lyrium into his skin, one that was so mentally scarring he's forgotten his entire life up to that point, and his Tevinter Magister master being indescribably petty and cruel, he's turned into a brooding, skulking mess of a man. Of course, [[Mr. Fanservice|that doesn't stop the ladies from squealing]] over him... [[Even the Guys Want Him|Or the menfolk]].

 

== Web Comics ==

 

== Web Original ==

* Done successfully to [[Incorruptible Pure Pureness]] in ''[[Broken Saints]]''. Justified in that said character is an [[The Empath|empath]], and the torture was simply necessary to turn {{spoiler|her}} into a conduit for negative emotion. Not that that makes [[Eye Scream|any of the torture]] less disturbing.

* In [[Addergoole]] a lot of the worst Keepers are those who were abused when they were Kept previously.

 

== Western Animation ==

 

== Real Life ==

** Unfortunately, society has isolated male victims of rape and child abuse for this reason. One insane billboard released by a rape prevention center showed a bruised little boy in tears with the caption "Future sex offender?", and an urge to prevent the chain of abuse.

* Ayman al-Zawahiri, the new head of Al-Qaeda, was tortured by the Egyptian government in his youth. Being tortured convinced al-Zawahiri that more violent measures would be needed to change the Middle Eastern status quo.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Madness Tropes]]

[[Category:Help Help This Index Is Being Repressed]]

[[Category:Evil Tropes]]

[[Category:A Tortured Index]]

[[Category:Morality Tropes]]

[[Category:Face Monster Turn]]