*Spoilers* The Torture Victims

[atmosphere]

Actually, I was on about one of my pet peeves here, which is that the game strongly implies that Alexander has been abducting and murdering hundreds of people over the past few years alone, and no one seems to have noticed.

I don't know how many people he has actually had to kill - I figured he had been using a heck of a lot of the amnesia potion on them. Torture them to the edge of death to extract all that rich, tasty vitae, then hit them with the potion and let them heal up. Lather, rinse, repeat until victim is entirely broken, then dispose.

He's been working on it for nearly two hundred years, and has probably gotten quite adept at keeping people juuuuust at the edge.

Towards the end with Daniel, he sped things up.

[superluser]

I don't know how many people he has actually had to kill

We are given an estimate by one of the notes, written by a man who claims to have brought 100 men to Alexander. I doubt he was the only one.

[martinstatic]

Same principle as the Milgram Experiments for me..I think Daniel carried out the killings when asked, with a heavy conscience, but did them nonetheless. Like watching a two hour chick flick with your girlfriend.

[Mjarr]

Same principle as the Milgram Experiments for me..I think Daniel carried out the killings when asked, with a heavy conscience, but did them nonetheless. Like watching a two hour chick flick with your girlfriend.

I'm more willing to bet on this line of thought from Daniel's point of view: "I am a young, [well educated?] man who has still alot to live for and I am being hunted, I don't want to die." and given the circumstances we'll learn in the game, it's more than reasonable that he probably ended up with the line of thought that the criminals (ignoring the question were they innocent or not) were not worthy members in the society and should be used for something good, in this case preventing Daniel from dying.

Sort of selfish in denial loop that occured due to the shadow, and after going too long (probably due to that woman) he realised what was going on and (probably) made him want to drink the amnesia potion. The comparasion with Milgram experiment would otherwise make sense but Daniel was not ultimately coerced or forced to come to Brennenburg, he did it by his own will and for greatly selfish reasons. Alexander on the other hand had his own plot ready regarding Daniel to simply use him, once again for selfish reasons which are mostly hinted during the game.

Of course this is just speculation, but considering that concept of death and dying are usually quite depressing, even unbeliavable thoughts for your typical person making a 'reason' (or excuse, depending how you see it) to keep living with the expense of other lives will often justify the means in subjective point of view, I wouldn't say it's that far fetched.

[Miel]

I think that I understand the events leading up to Daniel drinking the Amnesia potion, but for me, this makes him more of an unbelievable character. My initial reaction when I first played the game and uncovered the entire plot was 'no one is this stupid!'.

Daniel is naïve, for sure, and at least as selfish as any other young male, but I can't believe that he would turn into a murdering bastard so quickly. Alexander had hundreds of years to become what he did. Daniel had about 2 weeks. And judging from Daniel's diary entries and from the loading-screen passages that show his devoted relationship to his sister, he seems like a reasonably kind and innocent young man, though perhaps too curious for his own good.

He is, in addition, a scholar. He is most likely a university student, since he is young and in 1839, archaeology was not a profession, but only a hobby for the rich and educated. Daniel comments that, after sacrificing a man for the warding ritual, he doesn't have the luxury of argument. This attitude seems inconsistent with Daniel's profession. The reason people become scholars is because they are curious: it is in their nature to ask questions. Would Daniel be so willing to substitute one horror (the Shadow) for another (murdering a man) without asking questions? Especially after he was so shaken by the deaths of all the men killed of the Shadow?

And if Daniel is a scholar and archaeologist, shouldn't he have developed some skills of observation? Didn't he notice anything amiss once he got to Brennenberg? Like the wealth of local lore about the Baron, the precarious and inaccessible location of the castle, and the obviously evil Baron who keeps a secret underground lair for the worship of heathen gods? The Mithraic altars and state of the prisoners should have at least roused his suspicions. If he was a good man with a sane mind, he would have booked it out of there after Alexander showed him the torture chambres.

Having been raised in England in the early 1800s, there is no way that Daniel could have seen torture as an acceptable method of disposing of prisoners, even those accused of the most heinous crimes. The last traces of torture were abolished in Britain over 70 years before the year the game is set in, and torture was abhorrent to the rigid Victorian morality of the era. The circumstances that could have created a monster like we know Daniel to be just don't exist.

In an attempt to rationalise Daniel's behaviour, I came up with a theory that the Shadow is destroying his mind. This explains his fragile sanity and his psychopathic tendencies. If the Shadow is eating away at his mind and his humanity, it makes sense that he would go mad in an attempt to save his life, forgetting himself in the process and not realising that he may actually be hastening his death. When he briefly comes to his senses, it is enough to make him want to forget what he has done, but not enough to make him see himself clearly for what he has become. This is why he focuses on murdering Alexander, even though he himself is deserving of no less.


...


Erm, I'm really sorry about the rant. I love this game, but it felt good to get that out of my system. I think I could go on for another few pages, though >.<

[hollowleviathan]

Firstly, as a 19th century Briton, he'd be well acquainted with the class system and his superiority to the dregs and criminals of his day. They're by no means his equal.

Daniel did not start torturing people, not nearly. He started by executing a murderer with a swift cut to the heart. He did not start off flaying women and children alive. It took the influence of the creeping shadow and Alexander using his shattered orbs to induce madness for a week from straightforward executions to unspeakable acts by whip and knife.

The torture isn't pointless, or for the purpose of cruelty. It is a necessary act to create the product of the vitae so desperately needed to save Daniel and anyone else in the way of the shadow. Daniel doesn't need to hate those criminals, only to think they deserve punishment, and to believe that he does not.

By the end of the week of doing unspeakable things, he's nearly mad and flailing to dehumanize the victim as a craft, and the torture as a mechanical repetition, devoid of conscious attention. He's using a lot of self-delusion, justification, and dissociative coping techniques, and even then, it breaks his spirit beyond the ability to stand.

I believe him, he's no different than any average person.

[superluser]

And if Daniel is a scholar and archaeologist, shouldn't he have developed some skills of observation?

The concept of higher education that we have today is not exactly what it was in the 19th century. A lot of it was just a club for rich parents to dump their children (at least in the US). Some of that changed after the GI Bill, though then it became job training, not scientific inquiry...

rigid Victorian morality

Victoria having become queen two years prior. And we don't know how long he was in Algeria. Also note that public executions were conducted in England until 1868. It would not be as difficult to get someone to be an executioner if he had seen it routinely in public. From there, torture would have been less difficult to get him into.

[Miel]

Sorry about the rant again; that's what happens when it's 3:00 AM and I've had too much coffee.

A university is where boys went if they had money and didn't feel like taking up a real profession. But the very founding principles of the university system emphasised humanism and asking questions. Science had been edging its way into the university system since the 17th century, and by 1839, scientific research would have been a significant part of university studies.

My bad on the Victorian era, but think of it another way: 1839 isn't too far removed from Jane Austen's era of painful civility. Society hid its dregs and covered them up with politeness and 'civilisation'. Public executions did exist at the time, but they were primarily conducted by hanging, which was quick (most of the time) and impersonal. Seeing someone hanged is a lot different than cutting him open yourself.

One of Daniels notes stated that the warding ritual was clumsy due to his inexperience, and that he needed to practice with the torture implements, so I assumed that he tortured that first man to death. The game is a little vague on that, so I'm not sure.

I wonder if it's because I'm female that I have a harder time accepting Daniels actions as plausible for a human? He went from a scared, naïve boy to a foaming-at-the-mouth madman in under two weeks. I couldn't imagine that happening to a normal person. Supernatural forces and Alexander's power of persuasion definitely played a role, but it still strains my disbelief.

[hollowleviathan]

Then probably you believe that people are basically good? I happen to think that when subjected to even a small taste of fear, they'll resort to truly barbaric, unthinkable practices, anything that helps them recover a feeling of safety.

[Miel]

We have different definitions of the 'average person', I suppose. Is Daniel an average person? Are you? Am I? I work with children. I don't have it in me to hurt another person. It's more likely I would involuntarily stab myself than torture someone to death. In Daniel's situation, I would take one look at Alexander's setup, then run away and find a nice sunny place to wait out the end.

I find Daniel so hard to relate to as a character because I cannot understand his motivations. Based on myself, the people I know, the characterisation of 'past Daniel', and my conception of the society he would have lived in, he just doesn't make sense to me. I know that humans are capable of atrocities when overwhelmed by fear and anger, but I can't see an 'average person' becoming a monster so quickly. So I guess the question remains, 'what defines an average person?'