*Spoilers* The Torture Victims

[Nospheratu]

This story was made up by the writer, but IS based on some true facts and documented human behaviours:

1. In the stories' timeframe the Prussian nobility, which Alexander was a most high-ranking part of, could get away with almost anything, even kidnapping and murdering 100+ people. For a related story check out what Vlad Tepes (Drakul) got away with in his own domain just becouse he saved his country from the Turks (on one occasion he burned all the sick and mentally ill in order to make his domain healthier and richer) or what a seemingly pious french guy called Gilles de Rais did in his own lifetime. Want more? Skip ahead to Germany in WW2 and the concentration camps, about most information got out only after the allied liberation. How did they get away with it for so long (more than a million deaths in about 4 years)? Partly becouse the people running the country were free to make their own laws and partly becouse the general population was kept in the dark about the truth; also the ones who asked too much were disposed of too so naturally noone asked much. But enough of history, let's go ahead.

2. Since Alexander is a supernatural being which lives for more than a couple centuries, he has probably adapted to the society surrounding him very well and made enough arrangements not to draw suspition to himself or his staff. As a baron and jailer/peacekeeper he received a steady influx of real criminals, strays and war prisoners, besides that he steadily made his artificial servants which he put in to the surrounding woods, where they would occasionally kidnap some poor person which was unlucky to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. When questioned about this, he would simply have to reply: "I have no idea what those things are, but i don't have anything to do with them." He also needed human servants like Wilhelm to kidnap people, but he always made sure to dispose of them before any of them would blabber out something incriminating.

3. Some of you doubt that a person can become a cruel killer over the period of 10 days. I do not doubt that in the least bit, even for peaceful persons with happy lives and even in a matter of an hour or less. As any psychologist will confirm, sometimes it takes very little for someone to do horrible things; someone mentioned the Millton experiments earlier which is a great refference to that - sometimes all it takes is a command from above and for the torturer to believe that "it isn't his fault" the victim is in this mess (once again we could also reffer to the guards & staff in the WW2 concentration camps, who were merely "acting out orders"). If we further add the incentive, that if one doesn't torture and kill another person, he will be killed himself, then the most basic & powerful human (animal) instinct of self-preservation comes in to play: if faced with his own imminent death, almost any human will do whatever it takes to remain alive, but it will inevitably scar his psyche; Daniel even mentions explicitly that he "will do whatever it takes" to save himself, even torture and kill 8 people over 10 days, so yes - that is believable even from a scientific point of view.

Sorry for the longer post, i tend to get carried away