Hello, I saw your response about conditioning through torture and how it does not work. I was wondering though, if a torture victim was rescued by someone and then kept in their care could they be conditioned by them while being taken care of? I'm working on a henchmen whose horribly dependant on the villain as he views her as his savior to the point of his own self destruction and I'm not sure if it would be a conditioned response or just a feeling of debt.
Theanswer to this depends on the sort of responses you’re talkingabout and I don’t think the wording is great-
Butit’s difficult to know what the ‘right’ terms are when mostexperts disagree. I respond very negatively to the term‘brainwashing’ because of cultural implications that go alongwith that word. However there aremental health professionals who use the term, even those who researchthings like cults.
They’reusing the term to refer to a very specific set of manipulativetechniques in a way they hope will appeal to and be understood by themainstream.
I’mrejecting the term because I think it ends up leaving people with avery skewed view of what’s possible and confusing people further.
AndI think ‘conditioned’ looks very much like a synonym for‘brainwashed’ in this context.
Theword implies a lack of agency or choice on the part of henchman. Andit’s impossible to take away someone’s ability to choose.
Avillain can take away their physical capacity to make a choice (acharacter with their hands tied behind their back can’t choose toshake someone’s hand). A villain can manipulate. A villain cancoerce, so that the choice a character makes isn’t a free choice. Acharacter with a gun to their head being told notto shake hands is likely to think that shaking hands isn’timportant enough to risk their life over. But the character stillchooses.
Thereare a couple of ways that you can make the relationship between thishenchman and the villain extremelyunhealthy, manipulative and coercive, while having him realisticallyview her positively. I get the impression you already know that noneof them involve violence.
Let’sstart by talking about ICURE.
ICUREis an acronym that covers a set of techniques which are scarilyeffective at manipulating people and coercing them into changingtheir beliefs. It stands for Isolate, Control information, introduceUncertainty, Repetition and Emotive responses.
Fromyour description there’s a lotof potential for all of those right at the start of this relationshipwhen the villain rescues the henchman. In fact in the environmentyou’ve suggested it might not even be entirely conscious on thevillain’s part.
Dependingon his injuries and the way medicine is practiced in this setting itmight be perfectly natural for the henchman to be isolated fromalmost everyone butthe villain while he recovers. And that could be a long period oftime- months or years with complex injuries.
Ithink complex injuries with a long healing time would fit really wellwith this scenario and could help make the relationship appear ‘good’from the point of view of the henchman and the villain. Somethinglike complex breaks in major bones, requiring physical assistance andthen possibly physiotherapy providing a ‘natural’ reason for thecharacters to spend a lot of time together and for the henchman to beisolated from others.
Duringthat time the villain has a massive amount of power over thehenchman. But it doesn’t need to be wielded in ways that seemobviously forceful.
Tellingsomeone you won’t let them contact their friends or family has avery different effect to telling a vulnerable character in this sortof position that it’s too dangerous to do so.
‘Ireally wish I could but then wemight be captured. Or they might be tortured too.’ This makes itsound as if the villain’s motive is primarily to protect thehenchman, rather than to isolate him, manipulate him and make himreliant on her. It encourages him to view his isolation positively,to agree to it for the greater good.
Andthe terrible thing is it’s not untrue. Part of the reason torturesurvivors are often ostracised by their communities is the fact thatpeople close to them could also be targeted. This happens especiallyoften with charity workers, politicians and activists.
Soit’s relatively easy for the villain to isolate the henchman inthis scenario.
Onceisolated the villain would need to carefully control the informationthe henchman has access to. Essentially the villain is making surethat the henchman only ever gets her side of the story.
Ina modern setting that could mean telling him that it’s ‘safer’if they can’t use the internet or phones. They can’t be traced orfollowed. This has the added bonus of reinforcing and repeating themessage that the henchman is only safe with the villain and thatshe’s trying to protect him.
Ina more historic setting it’s often part and parcel of isolationitself.
Whateverthe setting part of this means controlling who communicates with thehenchman and what they’re likely to say. The aim is to make surethat almost nothing contradicts the villain’s version of events.Anything that does is a rare blip.
The‘Uncertainty’ aspect of ICURE is probably more relevant if she’strying to get him to break with a group he was previously part of orcompromise on some of his values. It means exposing him to thingsthat are designed to make him question his membership of a group orthe values that group instils.
I’mtrying to think of a…less awful example of this for the purposes ofthis ask. Most of the things that spring to mind are part ofsustained campaigns of hate speech before and during genocides.
You…may or may not be aware of the current problems Muslims in China arefacing.Several years prior to this people in these states reported that thegovernment had started an information campaign against fasting. Thesesponsored messages were supposed to be ‘proving’ that fasting isdangerous and unhealthy.
Theaim in this case was to spread uncertainty about a practice that is acornerstone of Muslim peoples faith.
Howapplicable these tactics are to your story depends on the henchman’sbackground and how much he (broadly speaking) agreed with the villainbefore hand. She may not have try and make him feel uncertain if hedoesn’t have strong objections to what she does and alreadyfeels isolated from his previous community because he’s beentortured. His community’s ‘failure’ to rescue him may havealready created a lot of uncertainty about the place he used to holdin society and the people he used to be surrounded by.
Repetitionis pretty simple, we tend to see repeated points as more credibleeven when there isn’t data behind them. So long as the villain andthose around her are repeating the messages she wants the henchman tohear that will reinforce them.
Thefinal point involves trying to trigger intense emotional responsesaround both the things the villain wants the henchman to relate toand the things she wants him to abandon.
It’sframing things in ways that make logic go out the window and pushemotional buttons instead.
Takethe earlier example of isolating the henchman from friends and family‘for their safety’. If the henchman questions this a possible wayof using emotional responses would be to jump from something like-‘Well I understand your points but surely I could just tell themI’m still alive?’
Toresponses like- ‘God after every thing I’ve risked and sacrificedto keep you safe you want to put usin danger?’
‘Fine.Get them killed. I’m just trying to look out for you.’
Notethat all of these responses derail the conversation. None of themaddress the actual point of the question, they just reframe theargument in a way that’s aiming to get a reaction, whilereinforcing the messages the villain is trying to send:
‘I’mthe only one who can take care of you.’
‘I’mthe only one protecting you.’
‘Youshould put your faith in me not other people.’
Giventhe situation you’ve outlined it would be perfectly natural for thehenchman to feel indebted to the villain, even without any of thisbeing used to manipulate him.
Butindebtedness will only go so far. Depending on the characters and howmuch they have in common it could be more than enough for thescenario you want.
Butif you want to make their relationship more obviously unhealthy andcoercive, then introducing manipulative ICURE elements is a realisticway to do that while still having a character who is completelydevoted to the villain.
Hedoesn’t have to view her as the best or nicest person in the world(though that might help), he just needs to see her as better than hisalternatives options.
Ifyou have the henchman changing his views after torture then be sureto lay the ground work for that change. Show a natural progression,with doubts or a lack of deep thought about his opinions beforetorture. If you like show the villain manipulating those doubts laterin an attempt to reach an outcome that suits her.
Butthat might not be necessary. Think about whether the character reallyhad a strong belief against violence or loyalty to groups the villainis fighting before he was tortured.
ICUREdoesn’t create loyalty or affection, what it can create is relianceand (over long periods) shifts in views. It doesn’t ‘work’ overnight and it’s not completely reliable. But this kind ofmanipulation canresult in genuine cooperation while torture can’t.
Ithink you need to decide how healthy you want the relationshipbetween the henchman and the villain to be and howmanipulative/creepy you’re comfortable with writing it.
Buthopefully this post gives you enough information for you to choosewhat you’d like to do. :)
Edit: Just wanted to acknowledge that commenters are correct these tactics do get used in more conventional settings, sometimes with good intent. They are just a tool, a tool that’s often used to abuse. But that doesn’t mean there’s no possible ‘good’ use for ICURE or that political parties etc don’t attempt to use it to get votes or change policy.
Mustard gas was the first successful cancer treatment. Awful things can sometimes be put to good use.
