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Electric Torture (view source)

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Real [[Cold -Blooded Torture|torture]] techniques are messy, uncomfortable to watch, and difficult to simulate for TV. Such graphic violence would risk an undesirably restrictive MPAA rating or rejection by a network's standards. More of an immediate problem, a key character with broken limbs or open wounds would simply not be able to physically continue in the plot without a considerable healing period, of which there may be no room for on the timeline. Including a physically broken character in the plot would simply be an ongoing downer, defusing any joy the writer intended to create.
 
Instead, most torture sessions in TV, movies and video games takes the form of an electroshock treatment, some form of direct neural stimulation, or the ever popular [[Agony Beam]]. In any case, the point is to have the actor shake around as if in terrible pain without actually causing any physical damage. If the producers are particularly interested in realism, a pair of burns will be left where the electrodes were attached. Depending on medium and genre, this may include visible electric arcs. Sometimes parodied, but far more often played straight.
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A favorite of the [[Psycho Electro]]; a variant of [[Agony Beam]]. See [[Magical Defibrillator]] for the flip side of electroshocking humans, and [[Harmless Voltage]]. May be part of a [[Robotic Torture Device]].
{{examples|Examples:}}
 
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
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* Yusei is the undisputed king of this trope when regarding ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh 5 Ds]]'': While in prison he's subjected to this twice (one of them [[Fetish Fuel|stripped down to nothing but his boxers]]), three if you count the excruciating experience of being literally ''branded'' a criminal, and again when he gets his D-wheel back from security in the form of hundreds and hundreds of [[Fetish Fuel|cattle prods]]. The Arcadia Movement might also have routinely done this to children in their attempts to raise a psychic army (it's how Misty's brother died, anyway).
* During Goku's fight against Jackie Chung in ''[[Dragonball]]'', 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 [[Electric Torture]] in the second episode of the ''[[Tenchi Muyo]]'' OVA after she is captured while being hung upside down, but it only tickles her and seems to have no effect. This changes when Ayeka jabs her with the hilt of Tenchi's sword and causes a much more painful electric reaction (although it can be assumed that it is much more than electricity doing the damage) due to Ryoko being unable to touch the sword.
** 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!"
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* Used in ''[[Saw]]''; Jigsaw shocks [[Action Survivor|Lawrence]] and Adam a few times in I.
* Used quite effectively (and somewhat humorously) in ''[[Kiss Kiss Bang Bang]]'', as the electricity is applied to a [[Groin Attack|very sensitive area]] and another character uses the opportunity to goad the torturer on the homo-erotic subtext.
* The [[So Bad ItsIt's Good]] ''Showdown in Little Tokyo''.
* ''The Evil That Men Do'' (1984). Charles Bronson is hired to murder Dr Clement Molloch, a doctor who advises South American dictatorships on how to torture people. The movie opens with the [[Mad Doctor]] demonstrating (to a group of army officers) the use of electric torture on a dissident journalist. Although the film cuts away, a later scene lists the extensive injuries inflicted by such torture, including teeth shattered from being clenched so hard.
* ''[[Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance]]'': Yeong-mi, the main character's girlfriend, has electrodes clamped on her earlobes and gets electroshocked to death.
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* [[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 stylus -- the shock triggered a lethal epileptic fit.
* 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.
* The Machine, Count Rugen's creation in ''[[The Princess Bride (Literature)|The Princess Bride]]'', features suction cup electrodes attached to almost every inch of the victim's skin, even on the tongue and inside the ears. Its result is rather singular; the Machine quite literally sucks away years of the victim's life. Prince Humperdinck, true to villain form, turns the machine up to the highest setting in order to kill Westley, but he turns out to be [[Only Mostly Dead]].
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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 wants--going as far as shocking a man's face to make him stop smiling.
 
 
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** 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 Next Generation (TV)|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'', the two-part episode "Chain of Command", where it was combined with sophisticated psychological torture methods. The episode was openly praised by Amnesty International for its realistic depiction of torture.
** 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 (TV)|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.]]
** 39 blows? Which is one stoke short of lethal? [[What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic]]!
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** Syd also gets shocked when the NSA arrest her and take her to a secret prison facility in the third season.
** [[Blondes Are Evil|Julien]] [[Evil Brit|Sark]] had his way with Vaughn in season 3 as they volleyed insults back and forth.
* ''[[Farscape (TV)|Farscape]]'s'' Aurora Chair, which [[Big Bad|Scorpius]] uses to view memories of his victims while simultaneously putting them in agonizing pain. The [[All There in the Manual|Sci-Fi channel website summary]] of it describes it as a "mental search engine", explaining the pain as, due to the way that memories are organized, requiring the activation of "every last neural pathway, one by one" - ''ouch''. This also leads to an ''awesome'' subversion of [[Save the Villain]] and a [[Bond One -Liner]] from Aeryn Sun, after strapping Crais into the chair:
{{quote| '''Aeryn''': "I will give you your life."<br />
''beat''<br />
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* 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 and Evil (Video Game)|Beyond Good and Evil]]'' is trapped in an [[Electric Torture]] machine when you first meet him. Even the heroine Jade is visibly [[Squick|squicked]] about his situation.
* In ''[[Mother 3 (Video Game)|Mother 3]]'', Fassad's method of choice for punishing [[EverythingsEverything'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.
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== [[Web Comics]] ==
* In [[Holiday Wars]], The [[Easter Bunny]] has a remote that zaps and electrocutes [[April Fools' Day]], as seen [http://www.th3rdworld.com/web-comic/Holiday-Wars/episode/Holiday-Wars-Episode-41 in this strip].
* 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 [http://www.meetmyminion.com/?p=1042 "we've tried that with our nipples once. Probably not going to get you anywhere]."
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