History Main / TwoPlusTortureMakesFive

* On ''Series/TheXFiles'', this is pretty much the objective of the military guards torturing Mulder in "The Truth." After breaking into a government facility and finding "the truth", as well as several other things the government was hiding, Mulder is captured and denied food, water, clothes and sleep. Whenever the guards come in, they ask him what he's thinking, and beat him for answering truthfully. What is the correct answer? They want Mulder to admit that he illegally entered the facility to obtain non-existant information and killed a man, even though none of those things are true. Why? They're holding a KangarooCourt and are hoping to get rid of him once and for all. It appears to work, as Mulder repeats the words back. Turns out he's just saying it to get them to leave him alone.
* They did this to Baltar in the reimagined ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|Reimagined}}'' to the point that his mind was so mixed up and he was talking so much gibberish that when he confessed to having done some terrible crimes, no one believed him.

* The phrase "2+2=5" originally had (somewhat) less to do with torture, it came from Soviet propaganda to encourage completion of five-year plans in four years.

* Lampshaded/spoofed in ''TheInvisibles'' when Sir Miles is using the drug ''Key 17'' to mess with King Mob's mind. He causes King Mob to see, among other things, five fingers where there are four. The illustration is subtly creepy.

* ''LandOfTheBlind'': "Nothing is better than a big juicy steak."
* The Green Goblin attempted this in an issue of SpiderMan. Having captured Spidey and held him hostage for several days, to the point where he was dying of thirst, Goblin presented two glasses of water. One was underneath a beam of light while the other was kept in shadow. Everytime Spidey reached for the lit up glass, he was electrocuted, but was told the glass in the darkness would be perfectly safe. In other words, Gobby was trying to goad him into literally choosing the dark side.

* In one of ''TheStainlessSteelRat'' books, "the grey men" mess with Jim's mind using hypnosis [[spoiler:to make him think they've chopped off his hands and reattached them]].

* ''ASongOfIceAndFire'': In the fifth book, Ramsay Bolton tortures [[spoiler: Theon Greyjoy]] and conditions him to accept a completely different identity.

* In the MiniSeries ''{{Roots}}'', Kunta Kinte is whipped until he says that his name is Toby, the slave name given to him by his master.

* {{Radiohead}} has a song titled "2 + 2 = 5" that was inspired by ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour''.
* LivingColour's "Cult of Personality" also refers to the concept with the lyrics, "I'll tell you one and one makes three".

* Possibly a reference to the ''Series/RedDwarf'' example above, in the ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' episode where Deputy Director Bullock (Creator/PatrickStewart, partial TropeNamer ''and'' big ''Series/RedDwarf'' fan) is sleeping with Hayley, Stan tries to make her ex-boyfriend Jeff more assertive by beating him up and getting him to say various fruit are something else.
** Though in this case Jeff will just agree that the orange is a banana because he's such a wimp. Stan was trying to get him to stand up and disagree with him.

* ''RobotChicken'' does the EnhancedInterrogationTechniques version with the nerd, who's being [[ItMakesSenseInContext questioned as to the location of]] [[TheLordOfTheRings Mordor]]. He finally asks what they want him to say.[[note]] "Pakistan."[[/note]]

See also AppealToForce.

* One reason for the BlatantLies in the pronouncements of repressive regimes (like North Korea's statement that their country is one of the happiest places on Earth) is that citizens wind up repeating them (to avoid being accused of disloyalty) even though they know the statements are untrue. This makes the citizens psychologically ''complicit'' in the regime's lies, and less likely to resist. That's the theory, anyway.

* In Germany's case the torture was economic collapse and Hitler was the one to say 2+2=5.
** Hitler had this trope backfire against him in the later stages of WW2 when his subordinates started forging military reports and making false claims about e.g. troop strengths to avoid punishment from their delusional Führer. This is where the saying "Never trust any statistics that you didn't forge yourself" originated, which was then ([[http://www.joewein.net/blog/2009/06/16/trau-keiner-statistik/ possibly as a by-product of Nazi propaganda]]) falsely attributed to Winston Churchill.
** Consistent with the Dostoevsky's version: the torture is 2+2 = 4 that you can't escape from and the escape is fantastical and "unscientific."

** Dostoevsky is actually inverting this trope: the torture comes from the reality that 2*2 = 4 and that there is no realistic hope to escape from it. Only when you can say 2*2 = something other than 4, can there be hope and freedom.

* The image source comes from the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "The Chain of Command, Part II." Picard is captured during a black op and taken to [[TortureTechnician Gul Madred]] (masterfully played by David Warner), who thinks that Picard knows Federation defense plans. Madred tries to force Picard to tell him that there are five lights on the wall when there are really only four. Every time Picard insists that there are four, Madred zaps him with an AgonyBeam. When Picard is finally released, he proclaims "[[PunctuatedForEmphasis THERE! ARE! FOUR! LIGHTS!]]" but it's not as [[DefiantToTheEnd triumphant]] as it seems -- later, Picard admits to Troi that not only would he have ''said'' there were five lights to make the pain stop if he hadn't been released at that exact moment, he ''did'' actually see five lights.

* The image source comes from the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "The Chain of Command, Part II." Picard is captured during a black op and taken to [[TortureTechnician Gul Madred]] (masterfully played by David Warner), who thinks that Picard knows Federation defense plans. Madred tries to force Picard to tell him that there are five lights on the wall when there are really only four. Every time Picard insists that there are four, Madred zaps him with an AgonyBeam. When Picard is finally released, he proclaims "[[PunctuatedForEmphasis THERE! ARE! FOUR! LIGHTS!]]" but it's not as [[DefiantToTheEnd triumphant]] as it seems--later, Picard admits to Troi that not only would he have ''said'' there were five lights if he hadn't been released at that exact moment, but he could actually see five lights.

* Possibly a reference to the ''Series/RedDwarf'' example above, in the ''WesternAnimation/AmericanDad'' episode where Deputy Director Bullock (PatrickStewart, partial TropeNamer ''and'' big ''Series/RedDwarf'' fan) is sleeping with Hayley, Stan tries to make her ex-boyfriend Jeff more assertive by beating him up and getting him to say various fruit are something else.

* The image source comes from the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "The Chain of Command, Part II." Picard is captured during a black op and taken to [[TortureTechnician Gul Madred]] (masterfully played by David Warner), who thinks that Picard knows Federation defense plans. Madred tries to force Picard to tell him that there are five lights on the wall when there are really only four. Every time Picard insists that there are four, Madred zaps him with an AgonyBeam. When Picard is finally released, he proclaims "[[PunctuatedForEmphasis THERE! ARE! FOUR! LIGHTS!]]" but it's not as [[DefiantToTheEnd triumphant]] as it seems--later, Picard admits to Troi that not only would he have ''said'' there were five lights if he hadn't been released at that exact moment, but he could '''actually see''' five lights.

->''"Nazi theory indeed specifically denies that such a thing as "the truth" exists... The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the [[EvilOverlord Leader]], or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but ''the past''. If the Leader says of such and such an event, 'It never happened' -- well, it never happened. If he says that two and two are five -- well, two and two are five."''

* The image source comes from the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "The Chain of Command, Part II." Picard is captured during a black op and taken to [[TortureTechnician Gul Madred]] (masterfully played by David Warner), who thinks that Picard knows Federation defense plans. Madred tries to force Picard to tell him that there are five lights on the wall when there are really only four. Every time Picard insists that there are four, Madred zaps him with an AgonyBeam. When Picard is finally released, he proclaims "[[PunctuatedForEmphasis THERE! ARE! FOUR! LIGHTS!]]" but it's not as [[DefiantToTheEnd triumphant]] as it seems--later, Picard admits to Troi that not only would he have ''said'' there were five lights if he hadn't been released at that exact moment, but he could '''actually see''' five lights. Though considered non-canon, a novel revealed that the fifth light was actually Q, worried for Picard's safety, creating it to get him to admit it and stop the torture.

[[{{Doublethink}} Perception is Truth. Black is White. Wrong is Right. Right is Left.]] [[Music/WeirdAlYankovic Everything you know is wrong.]]

* The image source comes from the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "The Chain of Command, Part II." Picard is captured during a black op and taken to [[TortureTechnician Gul Madred]] (masterfully played by David Warner), who thinks that Picard knows Federation defense plans. Madred tries to force Picard to tell him that there are five lights on the wall when there are really only four. Every time Picard insists that there are four, Madred zaps him with an AgonyBeam. When Picard is finally released, he proclaims "[[PunctuatedForEmphasis THERE! ARE! FOUR! LIGHTS!]]" but it's not as [[DefiantToTheEnd triumphant]] as it seems--later, Picard admits to Troi that not only would he have ''said'' there were five lights if he hadn't been released at that exact moment, but he could '''actually see''' five lights.

* The image source comes from the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "The Chain of Command, Part II." Picard is captured during a black op and taken to [[TortureTechnician Gul Madred]] (masterfully played by David Warner), who thinks that Picard knows Federation defense plans. Madred tries to force Picard to see five lights on the wall when there are really only four. Every time Picard insists that there are four, Madred zaps him with an AgonyBeam. When Picard is finally released, he proclaims "[[PunctuatedForEmphasis THERE! ARE! FOUR! LIGHTS!]]" but it's not as [[DefiantToTheEnd triumphant]] as it seems--later, Picard admits to Troi that not only would he have ''said'' there were five lights if he hadn't been released at that exact moment, but he could '''actually see''' five lights.

The FBI went first. The returned two hours later without a rabbit and made a report: "We surveilled the rabbit, bugged his house, and built an airtight case against him."\\

** Dostoevsky is actually subverting this trope: the torture comes from the reality that 2*2 = 4 and that there is no realistic hope to escape from it. Only when you can say 2*2 = something other than 4, can there be hope and freedom.

* The image source comes from the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "The Chain of Command, Part II." Picard is captured during a black op and taken to [[TortureTechnician Gul Madred]], who thinks that Picard knows Federation defense plans. Madred tries to force Picard to see five lights on the wall when there are really only four. Every time Picard insists that there are four, Madred zaps him with an AgonyBeam. When Picard is finally released, he proclaims "[[PunctuatedForEmphasis THERE! ARE! FOUR! LIGHTS!]]" but it's not as [[DefiantToTheEnd triumphant]] as it seems--later, Picard admits to Troi that not only would he have ''said'' there were five lights if he hadn't been released at that exact moment, but he could '''actually see''' five lights.

* The attorney General wanted to find which was his best law enforcement agency, so he held a contest. The FBI, the CIA, and the NYPD all took part, meeting the AG at the edge of a large forest.\\

->''Nazi theory indeed specifically denies that such a thing as "the truth" exists... The implied objective of this line of thought is a nightmare world in which the [[EvilOverlord Leader]], or some ruling clique, controls not only the future but ''the past''. If the Leader says of such and such an event, "It never happened" -- well, it never happened. If he says that two and two are five -- well, two and two are five.''
--> --'''Creator/GeorgeOrwell''', "Looking Back on the Spanish War," [[OlderThanTheyThink two plus two years before]] ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour''