Sarah Spradlin

Welcome, Little Brown Dog. 🙂 We have fun here; no doubt about it.

Yes. Do the elf thing.

Yeah, that tends to happen around here. 😀

You raise good points, @howlingwolf. But the question here is not whether or not torture can be faulty, but is it even an acceptable practice, whatever it’s faults.

I certainly grant you there are problems with the system. 😛

That’s funny. I seem to remember you telling us that you were 16,000. Something about healthy living, wasn’t it? 😉

Hey, you raise some good points there, Ezra.

Let’s try this then. Suppose we take someone who is by definition a wrongdoer— a terrorist, for instance, or some general who has committed mass atrocities— unquestionably outside the bounds of what is acceptable in war. Someone like Hitler.
They deserve death. By every definition, they are guilty…[Read more]

That made me laugh too, Amanda. 😀

Okay Daeus, now that we’ve got the premise, let’s flesh it out.

Honestly, I forgot about his best friend.
We could say he ends up fighting against Walter when Walter becomes ruthless… that could illustrate how bitter Walter has become. To flesh that out further, we could also say that the best friend has a…[Read more]

Oh goodness, Ezra. Please. 😛

@Ezra-Wilkinson— the difference between torture and punishment is this. If you commit a crime, you are dealt some painful consequence of that crime to teach you not to commit that crime again. Once you have received that punishment and paid, presumably, for your wrongdoing, you are free to go and need not face any consequence again unless you…[Read more]

Hm… I like that. I like that. I really do. Let’s see… let’s see where I can take this…

Oh boy, I’m too tired to avoid cliches tonight.

Let’s say Walter was out on one of his long walks, and he comes back to find his home burned by terrorists and his family all presumably dead. Sufficiently tragic?

He’s not exactly the type to go off…[Read more]

Oops— my bad.

But isn’t that IN the forum called Novel Ideas?

Ooh… don’t tempt me, Daeus. I have too many characters already. 😛

That’s great though. I may just have to. Oh dear…

I just realized we did that backwards. We should have started with a charming good guy and made him villainly.

You start it this time. 😀

Welcome, Little Brown Dog! And thanks for bringing @howlingwolf along with you. 😉

Here are the basic rules of survival for the newbie on an online writing forum.

1. Learn the lingo. A few important abbreviations you need to know are as follows.
POV: Point of View.
MC: Main Character.
WIP: Work in Progress.

2. Watch out for…[Read more]

You didn’t scare me away. I just had to eat dinner. 😛

It sounds like you’ve done a good job of having this be a story element, @howlingwolf, but not promoting it. That’s perfectly fine. In fact that can actually be a very good thing, as it forces the reader to stop and think about these things. And that’s always good.

I think it’s safe to say…[Read more]

Yes, you can. Go to the forum called ‘novel ideas’ and create yourself a topic there.

@Littlebrowndog It’s fine you posted here first. 😉

Also, I think someone said it but I’m not sure who…a ‘good’ character could use torture without you promoting it. Perhaps he’s really angry when he uses it; or maybe he matures more later on or becomes a Christian and then he realizes it might not have been the best thing to do (assuming we…[Read more]

Hm… the problem with that though, David, is that the Bible condones war as a necessary evil, but says nothing about torture.

This is what we logic fanatics call a slippery slope. If you go so far, you’re going to have to go all the way to the end.

If you took that same argument— that torture is bad, but it’s better than letting thousands…[Read more]

Hm. I guess I missed that part.
No, I didn’t read the unabridged version. I wanted to so badly, but we looked everywhere (and I mean everywhere) and couldn’t find it.
So I picked up an abridged version and read about the abridging process, and it sounded like it was only stylistic editing. Well, turns out I was wrong, so I’m still looking.…[Read more]

Yes! His name fits him perfectly. 😀 I think a lot of the reason I liked Luigi was because he was obviously so refined and educated, so it was intriguing to imagine how he fell to where he was, and what he had been before.

In regards to those who start out bad, I would say you still have to understand why they’re like that in the first place.…[Read more]

Yes, that makes sense.

Here’s the question then. This person that you’re torturing, supposedly at least, has been engaged in a war against you. He has been killing your soldiers, and would kill you if he got the chance. Does that justify it? Especially when you consider that the information he has could likely save thousands of lives?

The only…[Read more]

Yes, good points, Hope.
I’ve got absolutely no problem with good guys using mental manipulation. It’s torture I’m not sure about.

I’m going to suggest a tentative thought. You can still have a non-villain employ torture without promoting it. Just because it’s not the villain torturing someone doesn’t mean it’s right to do it.
If it’s essential…[Read more]