About Using Torture

A word at the beginning: No, this is not a post about how you shouldn’t use violence or dark and gritty themes or suchlike in your stories. It’s not about not portraying things which happen in real life and are, agreeably, bad. Quite the other way around: it’s about realistically using torture and avoiding the pitfall of ‘it’s a reliable source of information.’

Let’s start with that right away. Oodles of novels, movies, TV series, and other types of media show torture as a way for the bad guys and the good guys (as long as they’re not too good) to gain information which is true and useful. Well, I have bad news for you on that front. One reason why we don’t use torture any longer is that it doesn’t work that way. If you hurt someone, they’ll do everything to make it stop at some point. That means that in most cases they’ll tell the torturer what they want to hear - or what the victim thinks the torturer wants to hear. Needless to say that that doesn’t have to be the truth.

In most stories, what the caught bad guy says under torture is true - but that’s not what happens in real life. Especially when you have a timed situation (bomb going off, hostage in danger, etc.), verifying the information would take time you may not have and you would need to verify the information.

So, unlike in shows like “24”, torture as a valid form of getting reliable information isn’t a reality. Don’t make it one, because it leads to people thinking it really is. To people saying ‘why shouldn’t the police rough up a suspect to find the kidnapped child?’, for instance.

There are places for torture and violence against a helpless person in fiction, just not when it comes to getting information. It took us a few centuries (or a few more), but we learned this lesson, don’t let it be unlearned.

So, after the ‘when not to use it’ part, now on to the other one. When can you use torture in your story (provided it fits with the tone)?

Your villain can use torture in different ways. They want to break someone’s will, perhaps even turn a friend against the hero. Torture, both psychological and physical, can do that. They want someone to confess to a crime they didn’t do. That’s what’s been done through torture for centuries, so you’re completely in the green. They just are sadistic bastards (or bitches) and want to see someone suffer for no higher reason. They’re villains, so there’s no reason whatsoever why they shouldn’t enjoy the view.

‘And what about my hero? Well, my antihero?’ you ask. Your anti-hero can get violent in certain situations. Perhaps they’re attacking a guy they’ve caught, because they have been taunted constantly. Perhaps they’re forcefully taking some object from someone, because they need it (or think they do). Do that, have them get violent towards someone who is not a threat, who is not fighting back. But, and that’s an important ‘but,’ show that it has negative consequences. The hero gets into trouble for roughing up that guy, despite the taunting beforehand. The object doesn’t work - it wasn’t what they really needed.

‘But my hero is an anti-hero, they’re allowed to be violent,’ you say. Yes, they might be allowed to be violent, depending on the setting. If you’re doing the whole dark and gritty setting, they will certainly be violent to a degree. There is, however, a difference between being violent towards attackers, towards people who are on the same level when it comes to fighting, and being violent towards people who are no threat to the hero and can’t protect themselves. The reason why an anti-hero is still a hero is that they have a code - a code of conduct or a moral code, created by themselves in most cases. It might not confirm to the law, allow for them to steal, lie, break in, even kill under certain circumstances, but there’s still limits, hard limits which the character will never ignore. Attacking someone who is in no position to defend themselves should be one of those. Your anti-hero can kill as many armed henches as they like, but they shouldn’t kill a civilian just as easily and without even a tinge of a bad conscience or hint of consequences.

Back to getting information, though. When I started writing the Knight Agency series, I made it clear early on that the agents are trained to withstand torture (yes, even the women), but also that the Agency doesn’t use torture. They interrogate, which is not the same. Interrogation techniques rely on psychology, on getting the person you interrogate to trust you. It’s essentially the opposite of torture. You want them to relax a little, to drop their defences, to let things slip because of it. Or you surprise them, you destroy their balance, you make them lose their cool, but not through pain. That is what Jane is taught to do, what she helps with throughout the series. Not how to cause someone as much pain as possible, but to get them to drop their defences and tell her more than they want to, because those slips are true - there’s no reason to keep silent about the lies.

That actually gives you a lot more to do, allows you to create a character tailored to that sort of thing - devious, manipulative, intelligent, charming, personable. Perhaps a colleague or friend - or someone the hero needs to hire, meaning they need to do some other jobs, a little subplot, in order to get the money or whatever else the interrogation specialist demands for their services. Perhaps that interrogator is a freelancer, perhaps they’re under control of the villain, perhaps they’re in trouble themselves and need to be rescued first.

Think of Black Widow in “Marvel’s The Avengers” as she’s questioning Loki. She plays him, she uses his own arrogance against him until he lets slip what she wants to know. That is a scene which is much more unusual and much less expected than simply torturing someone. Interrogation demands intelligence and knowledge about psychology, the ability to read people and the ability to act convincingly. I’m not saying that a successful torturer doesn’t have a certain specific skill set as well, but a well-created interrogation scene can be much more interesting and engaging for the audience.

Remember that there’s a reason torture is no longer used regularly in law enforcement: it doesn’t work for getting information. Interrogation does, though, and is used very successfully. Your villain can be as brutal as they wish, use torture to break their prisoner’s will, to get a false confession, just because they like seeing people in pain. Your hero, especially if they’re more of an anti-hero, can also use violence against helpless people, but they should be punished by the story for it, because it’s not something a good guy or a moderately not-bad guy should resort to. Using violence against attackers, though, is not a problem.