Electric Torture: Difference between revisions
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{{trope}}
[[File:han-solo-
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It's almost guaranteed that a variation on this conversation will take place:
{{quote|'''[[Big Bad]]''': [[Tim Taylor Technology|Increase the intensity!]]
'''[[Torture Technician]]''': [[Even Evil Has Standards|But that could kill him]]!
'''Big Bad''': [[Kick the Dog|DO IT]]! }}
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== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]]'': A [[Deal with the Devil|Mephisto-like]] character introduces Kaiser to a method of playing Duel Monsters that involves
** Nevermind, turns out [[This Is Your Brain on Evil|it was his Cyberdark deck, all along]].
* In the manga version of the [[Yu-Gi-Oh!|original series]], Jonouchi is tortured by gang members (the leader of which just happens to be a former friend) with stun guns. Later on, Yugi defeats the entire gang using a knocked-out member (holding a stun gun), the weather, and a couple of well-placed threats.
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* During Goku's fight against Jackie Chung in ''[[Dragon Ball]]'', Jackie Chung uses a finishing move that shocks the opponent with 20,000 volts of electricity (according to Yamcha). Goku eventually became willing to give in, but then he saw the full moon...
* Parodied in the third episode of ''[[Excel Saga (anime)|Excel Saga]]''; a group of soldiers subject Excel to being shocked with electrodes, only to find it [[Too Kinky to Torture|arouses her]]. In confusion, they shock another soldier, who displays the [[X-Ray Sparks|standard cartoon reaction]].
* Ayeka subjects Ryoko to some form of
** Note: In the actual Japanese dialog for this, Ryouko shouts "[[Too Kinky to Torture|I'm coming]]!" to irk Ayeka, but the subtitles in later releases of the OVA do not reflect this, cleaning it up to "That tickles!"
* Ginji of ''[[GetBackers]]'' has been known to interrogate random [[Mooks]] by slowing raising the charge ("750, 1000, 1500...").
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== [[Film]] ==
* ''[[The Incredibles]]''
* Poor [[The Woobie|Bumblebee]]. He's shocked in the first live action ''[[Transformers (film)|Transformers]]'' movie, for no apparent reason, and in a comicbook story arc connected with said movie...
* In ''[[Lethal Weapon]]'', Riggs is tortured by a [[Torture Technician]] played by Al Leong.
* John Rambo in ''[[Rambo
* Memorably applied by [[Papa Wolf|Bryan]] (played by [[Liam Neeson]]) in ''[[Taken (film)|Taken]]'' on a [[Complete Monster|worthless brute]] that addicts helpless little girls to drugs before selling them to be raped by dirty old men. He slams two long-blunt-and-rusty nails into the evil bastard's deserving thighs, connects the nails to a fuse box, and turns on the light, coolly telling him that unlike third world countries (which they used to outsource this kind of thing to), the power in Paris "will stay on till they turn it off from lack of payment on the bill." When the bastard gives up information on the person he sold Bryan's daughter to, Bryan leaves the room, with the power on.
* The torture device in ''[[The Princess Bride (film)|The Princess Bride]]'' isn't technically
* Sith Lords ''love'' to do this to their victims in the ''[[Star Wars]]'' universe. [[Expanded Universe]] information on how the Force works turns this into a subversion; it's not actual electricity, per se, more like a visual manifestation that symbolizes using the dark side to inflict terrible pain on someone you feel extreme hate for.
** Of course, as the page image indicates, [[Pragmatic Villainy|Vader wasn't above letting a machine do the work]].
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* Toward the end of ''[[The President's Analyst]]'', Dr. Schaefer is captured by {{spoiler|the phone company}}, who intend to extract information about the President for their ends. They have him trapped in a phone booth and subject him to some kind of high-tech pain-inflicting technology.
* Played with in ''[[The Artist]]'', as the movie begins with an audience watching George Valentin's [[Show Within a Show|newest movie]], where Valentin's character is being subjected to some sort of electric torture.
== [[Literature]] ==
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* In Ken Follett's thriller ''Jackdaws,'' the Nazi interrogator (who is not in any way [[Those Wacky Nazis|comical]]) tortures one of the women by {{spoiler|sticking an electric probe up her vagina}}. She gets her comeuppance, however, by [[Karmic Punishment|doing the same thing to him]], simply in a different location.
* [[Canon Sue|John Galt]] goes through this at the end of ''[[Atlas Shrugged]]''. [[Too Kinky to Torture|Not only does he stoically endure the torture, but he's able to professionally troubleshoot the torture device, while still tied down, when it breaks after being turned up too high]].
* Heinz, one of the interrogators in [[Stephen King]]'s short story ''In the Deathroom'', has custom-built a device that draws power from a car battery and transfers it to a large steel stylus; he claims to the story's protagonist that he has used it to deliver shocks to prisoners' hands, feet, and other more delicate places. Evidence in the story indicates that he killed a friend of the protagonist by jabbing him in the temple with the
* The book ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four|1984]]'' had such a device used on the protagonist, though it was not even close to the worst torture he was subjected to.
* In ''[[Incarnations of Immortality|On A Pale Horse]]'', the hero's girlfriend is tortured by being stripped to her waist, and [[Breast Attack|her nipples being touched by active electrodes]]. [[Author Appeal]] and [[Fetish Fuel]] ahoy.
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* [[Frederick Forsyth]]'s ''[[The Day of the Jackal]]'' sees the French Action Service resort to electric torture on Viktor Kowalski, with the ex-Foreign Legionnaire dying after he breaks and finishes confessing. One set of electrodes is [[Groin Attack|attached to the penis.]]
* Daniel Keys Moran's ''The Last Dancer'' has a standard part of the plot being wireheads who have a circuit installed in the pleasure center of their brain, which is apparently highly addictive, but which requires an electrical connection to work. Sedon tortures D'van (aka William Devane) by installing the same thing into the pain center of his brain. The really nasty thing is that Sedon uses a battery pack to power it, and when Denice escapes with D'van and Sedon, for several hours Sedon doesn't mention to Denice that the battery pack is still supplying agony to D'van...
* In ''[[The Regeneration Trilogy]]'', [[Shell-Shocked Veteran|soldiers with PTSD symptoms]] are subject to electroshock therapy. Although it's called psychotherapy, it's described as no less cruel than torture, since Yealland essentially shocks them until he gets the reaction he
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* The sadistic Adelai Niska from ''[[Firefly]]'' is fond of this torture.
** Subverted when Mal and Wash [[Casual Danger Dialogue|have a hilarious argument while they're being tortured]].
** Mal didn't actually die from the
* ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' has done this repeatedly. Daniel was tortured in this way in "Evolution" after recovering an Ancient healing device. The whole team besides Teal'c was tortured this way via metal cages in "New Ground". Pain induction is one of the stated powers of the Goa'uld hand device, used in more episodes than would be reasonable to note here. Daniel alone gets zapped by it enough times that in later seasons he jokes he's starting to get used to it.
** Also the Zat guns did this with one shot (second shot kills.) In their first season of use, that is. Later this was quietly shifted to a much-less-interesting [[Stun Guns|phasers-on-stun]] effect.
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** This can also be assumed to be what is happening in "the booth" in that same episode.
** The episode "Dagger of the Mind" features the neural neutralizer. Admittedly, it wasn't made for torture, and, being based on direct neutral stimulation, it didn't need any electrode-like things to be attached to the subject. Dr. Tristan Adams nevertheless figured out a way to make it into a very painful brainwashing device.
* ''[[Star Trek: The
** And the methods are a [[Homage]] to ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four|1984]]'', above. Right down to the [[How Many Fingers?]] torture trigger (with Picard's memorable "THERE ARE ''FOUR'' LIGHTS!" at the end).
* ''[[Babylon 5]]'' had the Centauri Emperor torture G'Kar with an "electric whip" that delivered an increased charge each time, with a guaranteed fatal shock on the 40th blow, simply because he wanted to hear G'Kar scream. [[What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic|He does, on the 39th lash.]]
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'''Aeryn''': "I will make you watch your life." }}
** Fortunately, despite the pain, giving Crais a chance to review his life, where he came from, the decisions he made, and their consequences started his [[Heel Face Turn]].
** Also, Nebari jailers give their prisoners restraint collars that can be used as torture devices: by pressing a button (usually attached to the interrogator's forehead) the collar inflicts crippling pain on it's wearer. There are two distinct types of collars: one, as seen in "Durka Returns" is a very basic
* Elle Bishop of ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' - does this to pretty much everyone she meets, even those she likes, particularly Sandra Bennett and then Sylar - though, he literally asked for it.
** Noah turns the tides on her in season 2, when he straps her into a chair in a small pool of water and drenches her, so that anytime she tries to shock him, she ends up zapping herself instead.
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* This was the specialty of the killer in the ''[[Criminal Minds]]'' episode "Limelight".
* In ''[[Married... with Children|Married With Children]]'', Peg and Al are competing with Steve and Marcie on a TV game show which gives prizes to the couple who torture each other worse. One of the tortures is electrocution.
* In an episode of ''[[The Flash (TV
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** Well, actually {{spoiler|it's possible to use electric Pokémon like Pikachu as power sources, so they were actually sucking electricity from it's body}}. But it still qualifies as torture.
* Occurs in the first two ''[[Shadow Hearts]]'' games, just to fulfill a villain's perverse fantasies (much more blatantly in the second). In the first one, it's done to Alice, and giving the proper responses ({{spoiler|the first one every time}}) opens a [[Sidequest]] (and saves her from being shocked). In the second one, you choose who gets the torture, and the responses you give determines the contents of a later treasure chest.
* Double H in ''[[Beyond Good & Evil (video game)|Beyond Good and Evil]]'' is trapped in an
* In ''[[Mother 3]]'', Fassad's method of choice for punishing [[Everything's Better with Monkeys|Salsa]] for disobeying him... or whatever excuse he had. He really enjoyed shocking the monkey.
** It does have the side effect of healing whatever status anomalies he might have at the time when he uses it during battle though. Fassad probably knows this, as he seems to be about fifty times more likely to shock the monkey when he's inflicted with one of these statuses.
* Done to Bruce Morgenholt in ''[[Splinter Cell]]: Chaos Theory'', Sam arrives too late to do anything, and finds him suspended above a bathtub having endured a very long torture. Players will hear his screams before they get to him.
* This was used to more realistic effect in ''[[
** You can also find this person's now-charred corpse strapped into a [[Steampunk]]
* In ''[[Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri]]'' when you seized the last base of another faction there would be a brief video showing a writhing figure screaming in agony as he was electrocuted. Given you had already beaten them was the torture really necessary? Yes, [[Evil Laugh|Mwa ha ha ha]].
** It should be noted that faction leaders are never killed, just kept alive for interrogation. If you defeat an enemy faction early in the game, they will be kept in your stronghold for ''several hundred years.''
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* Done at the start of ''[[Scaler]]''. [[Kick the Dog|To a twelve year old boy.]] Unfortunately, [[Spanner in the Works|this backfires on the villains]], in the form of causing Bobby to [[Animorphism|turn into a lizard]] before becoming [[Trapped in Another World]].
* In the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC for ''[[Mass Effect 2]]'', {{spoiler|Feron, Liara's friend and partner who was one of the people who got Shepard's body back from the Shadow Broker, is strapped to a specially-built torture chair that basically amounts to this. The only way to get him out of there without cooking his brain is to shut down the power at central processing, which means taking the Shadow Broker down}}.
* Done by very-evolved psychic Rose, of all people, in ''[[Street Fighter IV]]''. One of her ultra-specials, Illusion Spark, traps the opponent's arm in her scarf. She then proceeds to shock said opponent, apparently stopping only when she feels like it. To be sure, this is a more benign version - at least in that it's a fight rather than a torture session and she intends to knock the opponent out, not to extract information from them. Still, this move basically gives us a mini-session of
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* In [[Holiday Wars]], The [[Easter Bunny]] has a remote that zaps and electrocutes [[April Fools' Day]], as seen [
* Dupree of ''[[Girl Genius]]'' [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20041231 shows us how a medical device] can be tweaked a little to deliver massive electrical shocks for interrogation purposes.
* In ''[[Minion Comics]]'' Spencer and Dingus are offered various options for their torture, including a "car battery to the balls." They decline, noting that [https://web.archive.org/web/20130120051353/http://www.meetmyminion.com/?p=1042 "we've tried that with our nipples once. Probably not going to get you anywhere]."
* In [[Gaia Online]]'s plot comic, {{spoiler|Don Kuro tortures Zhivago for attempting to refuse an order to kill Gino Gambino}}. Turns out he's [[Not So Harmless]] after all...
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[[Category:A Tortured Index]]
[[Category:Applied Phlebotinum]]
[[Category:Death Trap Tropes]]
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