Discussion Main / TortureForFunAndInformation

Trope renamed from Gene Hunt Interrogation Technique by this TRS thread. Original YKTTW archive here.

Edited by ccoa Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.

Kersey475: Laconically, is a Gene Hunt Interrogation Technique merely a Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique played for laughs.

"Think like a man of action, act like a man of thinking, and don't be a dumbass." Hide / Show Replies

At the time of this writing, the following words appear in the trope's description:

"...this type of extracting information isn't quite torture, as such, but it comes fairly close."

My issue with this statement is that it is one hundred percent false. The description goes on to state:

"When using the Gene Hunt Interrogation Technique, the interrogator isn't simply causing pain to a victim to get information, they're doing it creatively, and probably having far too much fun in the process. Most of the time, they already have the information, they just want to let off some steam while verifying it."

Further:

"Simply put, it's the difference between beating a man senseless and beating him senseless with a pool cue and stripping his clothes off, having your friends hold him down on the table, and striking the eight-ball right into his sensitive regions."

Though what exactly constitutes torture is a matter of some debate, the example above in which a man is beaten senseless (whether a pool cue and some friends were involved or not) to obtain information is inarguably torture. From Wikipedia:

"...any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him, or a third person, information or a confession..."

That is from the Wikipedia's "Torture" page. The quote is from the United Nation's Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.

Really, the question is a simple one: If causing physical harm is not torture, what is torture?

I brought this up in the YKTTW entry, but the trope was launched without the issue being addressed. The change would frankly be a simple one, and the trope is based more around the creativity and originality of the torture used rather than its... for lack of a better word, "torture-ness," meaning the trope would not lose integrity if it was recognized as a form of torture. However, to continue to suggest that striking a man with an eight-ball is not torture is factually incorrect, and does not belong anywhere on the page.

edit: If no further response is offered, I plan on going ahead and fixing the passage myself. It would of course be best if the troper who wrote the description (this appears to be voodoochild) had addressed the issue as expected, but since that looks unlikely, and the issue is too egregious to let stand, I will step in unless a better option presents itself.

Edited by vexle Hide / Show Replies