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Torture in Games
Recent comments from Richard Bartle, one of the developers for the first Multi-User Dungeon (MUD), stirred up discussion about whether virtual torture is acceptable as part of modern games. Bartle was referring to a quest in the latest World of Warcraft expansion, Wrath of the Lich King, in which players are instructed to extract information from an NPC. He drew criticism for his view from a variety of sources, but Wired is now running a piece provocatively titled, "Why We Need More Torture in Games." The author makes the case that the failure of most media to properly portray how horrible torture actually is (for example, on the TV show 24), and the increased focus on real-world topics like Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and waterboarding, could make games the perfect venue for demonstrating the "devastating repercussions" of torture.
The object is to get what you want from the victim. Tools such as the La Susana and the Iron Maiden make it much more interesting.
Killing someone isn't torture in itself. Nearly every game out there involves killing. That's not the same as torture.
The idea was for the player's to choose whether a major storyline character lived or died, which is pretty close to it compared to other games that have come out.
An old live-action video game from the mid '90s titled Spycraft: The Great Game had a torture sequence. You had to interrogate someone and had control over how much voltage to use. It was quite easy to inadvertently kill her - and I will say that the first time I hit a switch and saw an actor screaming in pain actually was very jarring. Even knowing damn well it was an actor in a video game.
www.zombieapocalypse.tv
I don't play WoW or the MUD mentioned in the article, but I'm curious if the use of torture in these games does/would invariably produce honest factual information from the person/monster being tortured?
Torture has a somewhat speckled history when it comes to getting at what's actually really going on. Torture someone enough and they'll tell you whatever they think will get you to stop the torture, regardless of if it's true or not.
It'd be a bit more interesting I'd think if the torture sometimes works, and sometimes leads you off in directions that aren't at all productive(and might actually weaken you).
Yeah, don't forget the entire PREMISE of Knights of the Old Republic (and sequel) were predicated on how you decided to act in-game. In order to go dark side (evil), you had to do some pretty rotten things.
We play games the same reason that bear cubs play-fight, just like every other animal in the world, we teach ourselves through playing. I have a COMMUNCATIONS degree and I figured this out... you'd think the PhD's could put it together without making such a big deal of it.
J
Beer, now there's a temporary solution -- Homer Jay S.
From the article...
It's quite possible Blizzard has a much larger, slow-moving point to make about torture.
So, I would argue, might the TV show 24. Look how often the torture on that show doesn't work out as planned.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
After reading Designing Virtual Worlds I happened to log onto his MUD2 server and look around. Ahh.. memories. And so many missing features! The MUD descendants truly were fertile lands of innovation. Anyway, after about 10 minutes of wandering around in MUD2 I got sufficiently bored and tried to kill something. Bartle kindly informed me that I was a guest and guests should act more polite than that. If I wanted to create an account I could do some killing, but only in the appropriate area, etc, etc. All very British and proper. Of course, the next command I just had to try was 'rape'. Bartle hates that command, so the result was predictably hilarious. I was immediately disconnected and my IP address was banned. Beautiful.
How we know is more important than what we know.
How about tying someone up and tickling em with a feather?
I mean, let's be sensible here. Torture. In other words, making someone feel pain (physical, emotional, pick your poison) to get something from him.
Anyone here that does NOT know that this is something you don't really want to be subjected to? Well? I see no hands, so either people know or people know about it enough that they don't want to hear the logical followup to that question.
If we get desensitized to torture, to people being hurt and mutilated for fun and profit, I think something's wrong with the shows that picture it as something "mildly unpleasant" instead of what it is: Physically and even more so emotionally crippling. When we do the same in games, what does it change?
I mean, besides games having a weaker lobby and getting the thinkofthechildren crowd up in arms about people playing torture.
Is there a difference between watching torture on TV and executing it yourself in a game? In both cases you watch a character do it. In one case, you get to see it because you issue a command. In the other case you do because you don't issue one, i.e. don't change the channel. Where is the huge difference?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
My impression of WoW is that it is a fairly shallow game in terms of narrative with the quests. Most of these quests are simple grinding with very little aspect to rewards or consequences to the players actions. If the idea is to incoporate consequences or rewards to such things as torture, part of the gaming mechanism would've to be changed such that something valuable to a WoW player would be affected. I don't think WoW has ever presented the concept of good or bad in the gameplay, either faction can do pretty much whatever they want regardless. WoW isn't designed to disucss morality in terms of gameplay.
As usual, it's a matter of degree. It's kinky if you use a feather for sexual pleasure. It's pervy if you use the whole chicken.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
While somewhat more trap-based than torture based, Tecmo's Deception mostly fits what you describe.
The ______ Agenda
A lot depends on how it's done of course. The point would be to learn something and not just reinforcement attitudes and habits.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Milgram_Experiment
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
I have a COMMUNCATIONS degree
oh the irony
It's virtually painless!
In the WoW universe, little is permanent. Death is a minor inconvenience, not something that is forever. If a player dies, they spawn as a spirit at a nearby graveyard and walk back to their body and resurrect. NPCs (computer controlled characters) simply respawn in the same spot after a certain amount of time.
If the real world worked like that, well we'd probably have a rather different value system. If killing someone meant they had to walk back for a couple minutes and caused them no permanent harm at all, I imagine it wouldn't be such a big deal.
The rules of a game world are vastly different than our own so even if you want to ignore the fact that this is just entertainment, you can't try and apply the same morals to it.
I wouldn't really call the evil actions 'rotten', rather more like pointlessly evil. They weren't often actions with evil intent, or ways to do things with evil motives, but instead they were just completely retarded and random evil things.
You can be evil, and still do 'good' things to achieve evil ends, but in that game, you are evil by doing stupid things like randomly kill people all the time, or pick fights for no apparent reason or benefit.
The evil in KOTOR was pretty stupid most of the time, and pointless other than to make your character 'evil' through random acts of violence rather than cold, calculated evil.
I guess in D&D terms, you could be lawful good, neutral, or chaotic evil. Not really any choice to be both evil and sane.
Either morality is relevant in a game context or it isn't - if it is, then we should be disapproving of _anything_ in the game which is immoral (and in most cases that's anything that's actually illegal - killing 'bad guys' just because they're there isn't particularly moral). If it isn't, who cares about a spot of torture within the context of World of Warcraft, which lets not forget has a fundamental underlying premise of genocide - exterminating entire races based on their species.
Not exactly the height of morality there.
Would you like fries with that?
Well, in D&D you get almost the same thing, because not many people actually understand that 'Evil' (in D&D terms at least) is probably about where the average person starts - motivated by self interest, and prepared to work within the constraints of the law unless there's definite advantage to circumvention, but otherwise ... well, go where the pay is.
You just described Neutral.
"What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?" - Zapp Brannigan
One of the best parts of Shivering Isles was walking around town and interrogating citizens with the help of the royal torturer and his shock spell. There's another part where you, dungeon master-like, subject treasure hunters to various obstacles that either kill them or drive them mad.
Good times. :-)
How realistic are they going to make the torture?
Will the NPC say, do or admit to *anything* to make it stop?
Will the information obtained be inaccurate?
Will the player eventually find out that the character he's spent 4 game hours torturing, was actually the wrong guy all along?
That's Neutral. It has several subtypes.
Neutral: The one you specified. Somebody who doesn't specifically care much about these things. Most normal people go here, who don't spend a whole lot of time thinking about whether they're being completely moral or whether they follow the law exactly.
Amoral: Animals. No understanding of moral issues.
True Neutral: Dedication to Neutrality as a concept. Mostly applied to Druids. In my understanding a Druid's point of view is that things must persist. The kobolds must not exterminate the humans, nor the humans the kobolds. The druid will actively try to maintain balance between forces.
D&D Evil:
Lawful: Think lawyer type trying to screw people out of their money by using every legal resource to their advantage. This kind of person would argue that "Law == Morality", and that since it's legal for them to screw somebody out of all their money, there's nothing wrong with it.
Neutral: Selfish. No honor or tradition. Driven by self-interest. Will adhere to law or ignore it, whichever brings the greatest advantage.
Chaotic: What most games assume "evil" to be. Pointlessly sadistic, kills random people, backstabs associates even when against their own self-interest, because you see, they're EVIL and can't get along with anybody for any length of time. In the real world these would be insane.
Something which has bothered me about games, particularly those in the realistic war genre (aka every WWII game made in the last 10 years... thanks Saving Private Ryan), is that the enemy always fights absolutely to the death. Even in games where enemies slow down after a few hits, they'll still hold onto their weapon and try to kill you as they crawl along the floor. If they're going for realism, then these guys should drop their weapon after a hit to leg, put their hands up, and you then lose points for killing them.
You keep basing it off what the victim says. It's un-reliable, etc...
Torture can be useful to get what ISN'T said. What you already know the victim knows...but you'd like to fill in gaps or corroborate gaps in other theories.
In the medical field, the "pertinent negative" information....what the patient ISN'T saying is often more important than what he or she IS.
A better argument is that we can win wars without it. It is beneath us. It is wasteful and can lose your Hearts and Minds battle.
THL phish sticks
That "whole world in your hands" song is a textbook study; I'm sure Sony will update the next version of Home to include the necessary virtual waterboard and beatings so we can enjoy it as its composer intended.
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
There is a documented case during the Vietnam war: Nguyen Van Tai was interrogated by the CIA and its allies.
Years of isolation, torture of both the subtle and not so subtle kind.
The guy managed to give false information for years, with occasional bits of truth that was not useful anymore by the time he gave it.
The CIA decided at the time he was proof torture was not useful. Not even a matter or ethics: it just doesn't work.
Just Google for "Nguyen Van Tai" CIA "Frank Snepp"
Wild guess: because they're different things?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
If a game contains torture, and you only get to watch from the sideline, i believe it would just pushed the boundaries for what we think is ok. But if your character is being tortured, and leaves you in a vulnerable state, it might cause you to better understand the severity of it. However avoiding it all together might be best. Just a thought...
the Dungeon Keeper games. You built torture chambers in your dungeon so you could attract Dark Mistresses who helped torture your creatures to make them work harder, or your enemies creatures to make them reveal information, join your side or die and return as ghosts. Your own Dark Mistresses actually liked you more after you personally tortured them. The related torture animations and sounds were pretty cool, especially for back then. This was back before Bullfrog was acquired by EA, and Peter Molyneux was closer to delivering his promises.
When I think of games and torture I almost always think of WoW. Sheer torture to sit through that snore fest of a game. Yeah, that is grade A prime troll bait.
SHIRE!!!
BAGGINS!!!
hang your head in shame, "nerds", that no one has posted this yet
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I think the argument he tried to make is, how can you say dropping an anvil on a Roadrunner is ok when you don't think Coyotes should kill Roadrunners. One is a precursor to the other. This makes them effectively the same, for most cases (excepting where physics stops working for no reason, etc).
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
this is the quest in question. While there's a similar one in the death knight starting zone, the NPC's there are armed, and are not strapped to a chair begging you to stop.
If you look at the response column the player base was squeamish enough to create forum threads in objection. As someone who browses the forum on occasion, the first couple weeks after the wrath of the lich king launch saw an explosion of similar threads.
I think it would be better to have you torture the npc in question multiple times, being sent on quests related to the false information extracted 3 or more times before they give up and have you investigate in other ways.
Given blizzard's record of making changes either schizophrenically or far too slowly, it could be a while before they make any changes, if at all.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
what?
just like every other animal in the world, we teach ourselves through playing.
Right, and having to torture an NPC teaches you what? How to torture and that doing so is acceptable?
The intent may, and I am making a big assumption here, may be trying to teach the "horrors of torture", but some will take it as a lesson plan for acceptable behavior. Whoever did this in WoW didn't think it through and is irresponsible.
They were just antagonizing me up I had to kill 15 extra mobs for the last random drop for a quest item. I think a little torture of an npc is more than fair.
Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon. -- Susan Ertz
We can't claim that Jack Thompson is an idiot when he claims that FPSs cause kids to become shooters and then wring our hands about torture in games.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Yes it is unfair in games especially when being spawn camped and instantly getting blown to pieces over and over and over each time I spawn, its torture!
Oh, you're talking about a different kind of torture.
This space is not for rent.
The author makes the case that the failure of most media to properly portray how horrible torture actually is (for example, on the TV show 24), and the increased focus on real-world topics like Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib and waterboarding, could make games the perfect venue for demonstrating the "devastating repercussions" of torture.
Yep, just like everyone who's ever played a FPS knows exactly how terrible the horrors of war are.
And I've played enough Tetris in my life to know exactly what it's like to be a bricklayer.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
Just ask this guy. (But what does he know, he only got results like info on Zarqawi's location, not revenge.)
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
What do you think happens to the squares in complete rows, you insensitive clod? Oh, sure, they just 'disappear'. Murderer.
The author makes the case that the failure of most media to properly portray how horrible torture actually is ...
The old Hong Kong movies 1980s rather accurately, brutally portray electrical torture in the movies (i.e. fully uncensored).
Here in Asia, we use 240V 50Hz household mains. Like everyone else, we do touch electricity by accident, occasionally.
I think Asians do have an idea of what electrical torture is.
I wonder how far they will go in the upcoming 24 pinball game and how much will have to taken out when the game is set to adult mode moderate and / or family vs full.
I'm one of a handful of WoW players that focuses on the roleplay aspects of the game. I interact with other players in-character and write original fan fiction using my characters and the Warcraft universe. ( Minor spoilers for "Wrath of the Lich King's" Borean Tundra and Dragonblight zones follow ) In one quest, my character was asked to capture an enemy sorcerer and bring him back to the questgiver. On my return, I was directed to torture the NPC by clicking on an item I was given. At that moment I had an in-character choice to make: is this the sort of thing my character would actually do? I had the opportunity to walk away. The cost of doing so would have been the reward for completing that particular quest as well as any rewards from later quests in that chain. In the end, I chose for my character to go through with what was asked. Each time I used the item, the NPC reacted in pain. The first time his response was defiant, the second time his response was bargaining, the third time his response was pleading. He was given the information he wanted, the information was accurate, and it led to the rescue of a captured prisoner. In a later quest, my character was instructed to kill another enemy wizard. In this instance, one of the items dropped by the enemy was a bundle of letters, identifying her as the daughter of an important NPC and revealing that she was a covert agent infiltrating and sabotaging the enemy organization. In essence, by following instructions given by a "good guy," my character helped out the "bad guys." I'm not that far into the content of "Wrath," but I'm struck so far by the gray areas in which the opposing sides work. As a player, I would love for there to be consequences to my character having chosen to do both those quests. Of course I can work that into my writing as a roleplayer, but it would be fantastic for there to be in-game ramifications as well.
Given the way people react to a multitude of other games I'd say not only would more torture in games not be effective but it would be counter-productive. Not that I expect people to go out and start torturing people, but merely that they'll end up even more desensitized than they already are. Take a look at the sort of crap kids are producing nowadays, inspired by games and other popular media, on sites like Newgrounds. And by this guy's rationale all those violent horror movies out there should have already produced the desired effect.
Violent games already provoke a reaction in people, it's just that it provokes the kind of reaction gamers don't want. Look at the attention ultra-violent games already get. People get upset and gamers end up offended, like it's no big deal. One common suggestion I see is that the critics should try these games first before passing judgment. The problem is that again, gamers have gotten so desensitized to the violence that it's no big deal to them. But put the average person in front of one of these games and they'll be completely and utterly shocked and likely agree with the calls for banning the game.
I suppose some will argue that movies are just as violent. And some are, but most people don't go into movies for the violence. And more importantly, watching a movie is a passive activity, where in a game the player is making the decision to kill, maim or torture someone. It's all fake, but that's an important distinction nonetheless.
And there's another thing I notice time and again in both movies and games as opposed to real life. In real life there's constant criticism of military action. The US is being the aggressor, for example. There's no justifiable reason for way, there's no threat to the nation, etc. Games and movies will depict the same exact scenario, however, and depict belligerence as justified and usually depicted with an aura of coolness. As long as you're a badass, it's okay to obliterate any suspected threat. And that's not even touching on games which depict actual crime.
So what is the media ultimately doing? They're glorifying all this. If people were serious about depicting the horrors of violence, for example, they'd produce a game from the perspective of the victims. And it wouldn't be a stupid revenge game either because then you're just back at square one justifying the violence.
I, for one, think there's already too much excessive violence in games. It's at a point where reviewers even criticize a game for not being graphic enough. I'm not suggesting these types of games should be censored. But I do have a problem when people think that graphic violence and/or sex are somehow essential to a mature game. Like games can't convey other mature themes and concepts.
Ultimately, I think this just reflects the lack of maturity in many games. That some guy is calling for more depictions of graphic torture and hiding behind the argument of it somehow conveying some profound meaning is ridiculous. It sounds to me like his need for violence hasn't been fully sated yet. Of course, developers are just going to keep pumping out what the market is demanding, so I doubt this is going to change any time soon, if it ever does.
Amoral: Animals. No understanding of moral issues.
I don't think that's entirely true. Morals play an essential role in socialised behaviour in humans. Why would other pack animals be any different?
Never seen an animal "look guilty" when it's been at the feed bin when it should have? Anthropomorphising? Don't think so.
Metal Gear Solid - it had an actual torture section of the game that actually changes the ending. If you give-in to the torture, you get to save your girlfriend, Merryl. If you don't, you keep the secrets - but Merryl is killed (and, though the game doesn't show it, it is implied that she'll be raped first.) Disturbing, now that I think back on it.
Why can't all fpga/microcontroller manufacturers just release free optimizing compilers???
A friend of mine is a religious education teacher at a secondary school. He asked the kids which of them had played video games that graphically depict killing and murder, and whether this was acceptable. Predictably, most had played them, and none thought there was anything wrong with this - "it's just a game".
So he suggested a hypothetical game called Rape The Kid - you play a psycho that has to find children and rape them, for points - would they play this, after all, "it's only a game"? They were all horrified.
How far do you personally want to go and still call this entertainment? At the risk of sounding like some moralising religious nutter myself, where do you want your brain to be at?
Not that anybody here will care, but the original article is mistaken when they state that you need to torture the captive in order to gain access to the Nexus quests. The torture quest can be quite easily be skipped. The author is either lying to make a point or simply mistaken, but either way, their complaint about not being given a chance to walk away is invalid. Walking away is as easy as abandoning the quest and literally walking away from it. It's not as if the rewards from the quest are even that great. Of course, just as in real life, when you step up to do the right thing, you'll get minimal acknowledgment and dozens of less-principled underlings will step up to do the job that you refused to do. That's life. Unlike real life, you won't lose your job or have any long-term consequences for refusing to do things you don't want to do.
That was supposed to clarify?
Torture can exist without war and vice versa. There is no direct causal link in either direction, ergo no paradox that if you support one of them you support the other.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The whole 'torture doesn't work' argument is valid, but only if you use the process being described. Relying on a single person's confession is bad practice. It's comparable to performing one test in an experiment and using that as your findings. One would think you would have multiple interrogations and be able sort out the differences and inconsistencies to piece together pretty accurate intel. Like other have said though, the 'accuracy' of torture shouldn't be the deciding factor. If that's where we are as a society, then maybe it's too late.
I didn't make the claim. I distilled the point using a simplified metaphor. I don't think there is a direct causal link. *shrug*
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
I agree with you there, Sobrique. Not sure if you're American, but I am, and one of the fundamental issues I take with my culture is how violence, drugs, and language are all taken in stride, but woe be to whoever (whomever?) shows sexuality in a video game. Remember the uproar over Mass Effect's alleged "hardcore" sex scenes? The media jumped all over it just based on these rumors, while in reality there is just a bit of ass shown in the game. Never mind the hundreds of people you have the option of killing. Don't like the people in the Feros colony? Kill them all as soon as you get the chance!
In The Great Gatsby, there's one scene where the woman (I've forgotten her name) gets hit by a car, and the book details one of her naked breasts halfway torn off and flapping in the wind. This is considered an art form. In games, ANY mention of sexuality is immediately torn to shreds by the media.
I play games for the story, and hence I consider my games a form of entertainment [like movies, books, etc], not simply a toy. I guess my point is, moral issues should carry the same weight in any entertainment medium.
I've rambled on for far too long.
In Guildwars Nightfall they had to change a NPCs name because people were offended by torture. That's why a Corsair Prisoner in the training area became a Sunspear Volunteer. The Corsairs are your enemies, while Sunspears are your friends obviously. http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Sunspear_Volunteer http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Corsair_Prisoner
Very informative and exactly the kind of evidence the OP was asking for.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I can understand why having games show torture and demonstrate their consequences would be a good thing in theory, but seriously, games are for most part total crap when it comes to handling serious topics and most of them would be better of when they would move their settings into fantasy land then into real historical war scenarios, since they really only distort reality into a fun wack-a-nazi/iraq/guy-with-differnt-skin-color game instead of giving you an impression what was really going on. I seriously doubt that torture would be any different.
Now that of course doesn't mean that a game couldn't handle torture seriously, I just have zero hope that it would ever happen in a commercial game and the freeware ones will likely suffer a lack of budget to get things realistic enough to be engaging.
True neutral doesn't merely act without concern to good or evil but actually actively attempts to seek out balance in the universe.
Chaotic Neutral would be closer except that a CN still believes there should be balance in the world.
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1063621&cid=26136193
Neutral and True Neutral are the same alignment and amoral isn't even on the list?
You have LN,CN,NN and L and C variants of good and evil.
You've also mistaken other points. Lawful in AD&D really isn't synonymous with obeying the law of the land. It is about believing in an ordered structure. For instance, devils are Lawful Evil because of their adherence to an ordered structure but will break the rules of even that structure.
NE will sometimes side with order and sometimes not, all with regard to their own self interest.
CE do not ignore their own self-interest. Their interests just include bringing down the establishment. They simply ignore the rules altogether and do what they want.
There aren't any titles with country music?
I prefer 4th editions method of alignment: Good, Really Good (ie Lawful Good), Evil, Really Evil (ie Chaotic Evil), and Don't Give a Damn about Good or Evil (ie Unaligned).
Effectively, if you're not trying to do good for others, or your actions don't commonly end up hurting others due to your own maliciousness, you're Unaligned; literally, you don't work for the ends of good or evil. To be good or evil, you have to try.
That said, there's still value with the old scheme of 9 alignments as opposed to the newly condensed 5, and I pretty much agree with your segregation of the three evils.
Throw in a few Vern Fonk car insurance commercials and you might not need the full eighty hours.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
"Loading"
Atleast that was a pretty evil guy you tortured.
What about the daily quest where hungry walrus men ask you to collect innocent puppies, killing their mothers while doing so. It is pretty obvious what those hungry walrus men are going to do with the puppies. They must really like puppy meat considering that it is a daily quest.
And people do that quest repeatedly just so they can get their hands on an epic fishing pole and a penguin pet.
~ Ding fries are done! Ding fries are done! Ding fries are done! Ding fries are done! ~
Eh, it was an interesting degree. I never had the patience to code (little too ADD) so no Comp Sci for me, and other than that I had no clue what I wanted to be when I grew up. I'm not gonna say what I do now, but I'm very comfortable and love my job, which is about as 180 degrees from what I got my degree in.
Beer, now there's a temporary solution -- Homer Jay S.
Chaotic Neutral was always the best alignment IMO.
Balance is more important than law.
You're paid not to talk to people?!
Get back to work, slacker!
It's been a long time.
I dunno, there's a scene near the end of the game that let your character act deliciously cruel, to the point of shivers.
SPOILERS COMING
---
I'd played the light-side path the entire game, paragon of virtue, etc. Just for fun, right before I had to decide either to continue do-gooding or to embrace my destiny, I saved. "Let's see what this dark side gig has to offer," I thought.
With my saber, now crimson (natch), humming away, I approached my party who, until that moment, thought I was more virtuous than Jesus and Superman combined. Mission, the runt, wouldn't accept I was who I claimed I was. I gave her a choice: embrace the path of hatred, or suffer by it. She chose.. poorly.
That, in itself, isn't the evil part. Anybody can kill an annoying blue girl. What was fun was how I did it. You see, I posed the "by my side or by my saber" choice to everybody, including the wookie Zaalbar -- Mission's life-long infinity-bestest friend in the universe -- who, as payment for saving his life, had sworn a wookie life-debt pledging himself to me until his death.
Oh, this is too perfect, you guys.
I looked Mission square in the eye, and ordered my Wookie to honor his sacred vow. I ordered him to murder his best friend in the world. And he did it. He bludgeoned the turncoat into a blue pudding with her own dainty little arms.
He hated me for it, naturally. More than anything in the world, he hated me. I loved him for it. His primal fury. His unfathomable sorrow. I drank from him, as if he were a fountain. It satiated me.
I thanked him.
---
Now that's some good evil!
One man's constant is another man's variable.
I think Lost has had some pretty good depictions of torture. Sometimes it gets results, sometimes you torture the wrong guy, and even if you get the right guy they can still lie through their teeth no matter what you do.
Hmmm, how is that slacking if he's "paid" to not talk to people? I'll have to ponder that one.