Hi! I appreciate your analyses of popular stories (like The Princess Bride), but are you willing to look at video-games that prominently feature torture? Widowmaker of Overwatch is really popular on Tumblr, and I always felt her backstory/characterization invokes some extremely skeevy tropes about torture & femininity. She starts off as a ballerina and 'loving wife' of the leader of a counter-terrorist organization, but is kidnapped by terrorists and "subjected to neural reconditioning." (1/3)
She seems'normal' when rescued, but 2 weeks later her conditioning makes her murder hersleeping husband. She's then recaptured to complete her brainwashing, withextensive combat training and having her heart slowed to 'numb her emotions'.Despite this backstory of coercion, her behavior as an assassin is quiteautonomous and willfully violent (like the devs wanted a female villain BUTabsolve her of responsibility.) Only vestige of old personality is her guiltaround dead spouse. (2/3) Being 'evil because of torture/mind-rape' is also theexcuse for her wearing a skintight catsuit, despite it not actually factoringinto her assassination methods because she's a sniper. Anyway, I was curiousabout your opinion not in the 'plausibility' of any of this BS...but perhapshow to maybe re-write such a character to make her less, uh, cliche?
I am willing to have ago at video games so long as I don’t have to invest cash in the game and dozensof hours playing it for the ask.
And since we’re on thesubject while I’m happy to take requests for the Torture in Fiction series I’mgoing to turn down some of them if I think it would take too long, I can’t gethold of the piece of fiction in question or if it’s something I think I’dreally hate for reasons unrelated to torture.
There are probably somevery good analytical discussions of the Star Wars prequels to be had but I’mnot sure I could sit through them all without serious damage to my television.
I had rather a lot ofquestions on brainwashing just before I closed the askbox, to the extent thatI’m trying to work out how to put together a Masterpost on the subject. One ofthe things I’ve been trying to come up with is narrative alternatives, more realistic ways to write aboutcharacters changing sides.
I’ve talked about whybrainwashing doesn’t work before and this question is very much about methodsof manipulation that actually work.
So- this is a littledivorced from Overwatch and Widowmaker but this is how I would be tempted write a storyline like Widowmaker’s, keeping keyelements such as her changing sides and killing her husband without rubbish about brainwashing,being ‘emotionless’ and slowing hearts.
To start with I’destablish the character (let’s call her ‘S’) has some sympathy for the terrorist group before she’s captured. Thisdoes not have to mean sympathy fortheir actions or methods. It can be as simple as an acknowledgement thesepeople are human beings or something to the effect that the political situationis complicated. Good examples would be sentiments along the lines of ‘but thatgroup of people have suffered so much it’s no wonder they turn violent’, ‘but they’reso poor they probably don’t have any other prospects’, ‘but the government theystarted out fighting against was awful’.
Note that none of these sentiments necessarily lead to support of aterrorist group or its actions. What they show is a willingness to recognisethat these terrorists are people.
S is then captured. I’dhave this take place away from both her home and her husband. If possible I’dgo for another country entirely. I’d also have it happen quickly and with aminimum of violence. Aunty Scripty’s famous ketamine is a possibility. Othersinclude spiking her drink and then volunteering to drive her home/to thehospital or setting up a fake taxi and locking her inside.
S is taken to a securelocation and put in a cell by herself. I would make it two or three times thesize of a US solitary cell, with a connected bathroom, a large comfortable bed,other furniture and decorations. I would make it look as far from S’sexpectations for a terrorist cell as possible. But there’s no TV and absolutelyno internet or outside source of news/information.
Then I’d introduce herto ‘A’. A is young, female, pretty, highly intelligent, extremely articulateand appears to be very sympathetic. She’s been part of the terrorist cell foryears.
The first time A showsup she apologises for keeping S alone in there. You see the terrorists arereally worried that if they keep S near the other prisoners she’ll get hurt.This is for her safety. If plausible I’d also have A claim that they weren’t trying to snatch S and that she wasmistaken for someone within her husband’s organisation.
A is very accommodating. She wants to makesure S is alright. Is the food OK? Does she want any more books?
In fact A comes by foran hour or two every day, may be several times a day, just to talk and make sure S is doing alright.
For the first month orso they don’t talk about the terrorist group or the organisation S’s husband ispart of, though A will always reassure S that her husband is alright.
Then, once they’vebuilt up a friendly relationship, A will casually mention one day that shefinds it hard to believe a woman as nice and kind as S could ever have anythingto do with that awful organisation her husband runs. And S will be surprised.She’ll probably protest that the organisation is made up of good people doinggood work. A will look sad.
Over the next fewmonths they’ll talk about the organisation more and more. A has a verydifferent view of them. And she’ll talk, reluctantly, about how theorganisation are butchers. She’ll tell S about ‘atrocities’ committed all overthe world. She’ll talk about rape and enslavement, destruction of wholevillages and poisoned water supplies.
And S will say that itisn’t possible. They’d never do a thing like that.
And slowly, veryslowly, A will start to prove her ‘wrong’. She’ll bring in phones with videointerviews of people crying about the horrible things the organisation did.She’ll bring in photographs of mounds of dead bodies. She’ll bring in anyinformation the terrorist cell can fake.
Over months she’llpersuade S that the organisation isbad.
And S will insist thather husband can’t possibly know about this. And A will look sad.
Now their conversationswill shift again, A will start talking more and more about things the terroristorganisation are doing. She’ll say some of the atrocities they’re accused ofare lies and she’ll excuse some of them, because they’re a small group, theydon’t have the best weapons, they don’t have that much money- What else couldthey do?
She’ll also talk aboutall the ‘good’ the terrorist organisation has done. She’ll probably have aheart wrenching personal story about how they saved her life, literally ormetaphorically. She’ll talk about all the people she’s ‘helped’ since joining.How it’s given her life meaning.
A’s more willing totalk about the news now. She’ll tell S all sorts of awful things theorganisation is doing. And when A leaves each day S won’t be sure who she’shoping will ‘win’ any more.
Next A will startintroducing the idea that S’s husband knows.That he’s behind much of this. She’lllisten to S’s stories about him and work in the details she’s learnt about howhe talks, how he acts. She’ll weave himinto her latest tales of the organisation’s recent atrocities.
And she’ll be so so sorry to have to tell S all this.
After a year or sothey’ll start letting S out of the cell. She’ll help A with A’s ‘regular duties’which should be simple, non-violent, things like cooking in the mess hall orcleaning up the pathetic ramshackle ‘hospital’ the terrorists have put up.
A will be very carefulwho she lets speak to S. (The wrong word at this stage could destroyeverything).
S will find she enjoysthis unpaid work far more than she enjoys being alone in her cell.
A will not encourageher to become violent and angry. If A has done her job correctly she won’t haveto. She’ll talk about the destruction of cities by the organisation and S will volunteer to helpbuild bombs.
Then after two or threeyears of this, S is ‘rescued’.
She’s home. She’s withher husband again.
She can’t stop thinkingabout A.
She’s awkward, hesitantand distant. She insists that the terrorists didn’t hurt her and she doesn’tengage with therapy. She distrusts the mainstream news.
She asks her husbandstrange, open ended questions. ‘What happened on the mission to x last year?’‘And the mission to y?’
Her husband shrugs. Hemight give her a couple of brief overviews but he’s probably not supposed totalk about his missions in detail. So he says they were normal missions.
And S lies next to himat night thinking about the photos of bodies, the people in the videos whocried. She thinks about the smiling terrorists in the mess hall thanking herfor their lunch and the bandaged children in the hospital.
And then one night sheputs a kitchen knife under her pillow and stabs her husband through the heartwhile he sleeps.
She showers. She putson clean clothes. She packs a bag.
A’s role is creepy,manipulative and completely immoral but ultimately this transformation, theseactions are S’s choice.
There’s no force and noviolence. Keeping S isolated means that she’s more likely to become dependanton A because without A she is literally alone. It could, potentially, turn herrelationship with A into the most important thing in her world. That would bethe ideal outcome for the people manipulating her.
There’s a lot of lying and misrepresentinginformation and limiting S’s access to information. That happens in real cultsand real terrorist organisations.
But despite all that,murdering her husband and going back to the terrorist cell are ultimately the character’s choice. The trick isshowing the readers why she’s making that choice, how she got to that point.
