{"id":43602,"date":"2018-10-11T06:00:31","date_gmt":"2018-10-11T10:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=43602"},"modified":"2018-10-04T06:48:07","modified_gmt":"2018-10-04T10:48:07","slug":"grand-theft-auto-v-torture-time-with-uncle-trevor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=43602","title":{"rendered":"Grand Theft Auto V: Torture Time With Uncle Trevor"},"content":{"rendered":"

For reasons I’ve explained before<\/a>, I have a firm “no politics” rule here on the site. There are lots of places to have the standard Red v. Blue debates, and most of them are sewers. The last thing I’d want is to play referee in that never-ending screaming match. Having said that, I’m going to break my own rules and make a political statement:<\/p>\n

I think government-sanctioned torture is a bad idea and – inasmuch as I have any say in the matter – I’m firmly against it.<\/div>\n

I apologize for the breach of etiquette. I’m not announcing my beliefs to pick a fight or in the hopes that I can sway you to my thinking. In fact, I don’t really have a stake in what you think and I’m certainly not interested in trying to change your mind. If you disagree, that’s fine. We’re still friends as far as I’m concerned.<\/p>\n

The only<\/em> reason I bring this up is because I want to make it clear that I am ideologically in agreement with the author of this scene. My objections to this mission aren’t because I don’t like having “someone else’s opinion” shoved down my throat. My grievances here aren’t based on party politics or tribal thinking. My problem here is that the GTA V argument against torture is so childish and inept that it made me want to disagree. <\/p>\n

Of all the things in Grand Theft Auto V that don’t work, the torture scene is the not-workingest. It takes a rare skill to be simultaneously sanctimonious and<\/em> incoherent. This scene is fractally wrong. As you zoom in on a mistake you’ll see it’s made up of smaller mistakes that are just as misguided as the whole. The last time I was presented with something this dense with problems was the hotel scene in Hitman: Absolution<\/a>. It’s actually hard to analyze this in an orderly way because the problems are so thick and interconnected. But I’ll do my best.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Setup<\/h3>\n

Why is Trevor not killing the FIB agents right now?<\/div>
Why is Trevor not killing the FIB agents right now?<\/div><\/p>\n

The FIB summon our antiheroes to a creepy warehouse on the edge of town. The FIB have a prisoner and they want to torture him for information, and then use that information to assassinate someone. Or rather, they want our protagonists to do these things while they stand back and pretend to not be involved. <\/p>\n

This is already a bit thin. If they’re trying to make it so they’re not blamed for the human rights violations you’re about to commit, then why are they hanging around the crime scene? <\/p>\n

The problem here is that we’re about to go through a fully interactive torture scene. The player will choose from several different torture implements and then use the controller to apply the chosen device to the victim as he screams and pleads for mercy. This is something a lot of people are not going to want to do, which means a lot of people are going to be asking for a solid justification for it, which means you need to make sure the whole thing stands up to scrutiny. <\/p>\n

When I go on one of my rants about the lack of logic in a given situation, a common (and more or less reasonable defense) is to say, “Shamus, you’re over-thinking this. Just go with it and enjoy the gameplay.” That excuse doesn’t work here because the game is demanding we think about the situation, and we can’t “enjoy” the gameplay because it’s actively, deliberately<\/em> unpleasant. <\/p>\n

What makes this really awful is that the victim is the only explicitly innocent person in the entire game. Oh sure, there might be other people in the cast that you find sympathetic or likable. Tracey, Amanda, and Jimmy qualify as non-combatants. But everyone, and I do mean everyone<\/i> in the world of GTA V is some combination of shallow, cruel, vindictive, toxic, greedy, abusive, manipulative, gross, hateful, bigoted, or nihilistic. Everyone except the guy you’re about to torture, who makes it clear up front that he’s willing to answer any questions and just wants to go back to his family. This is a very sensitive topic, and the game is going to engage with it in the most blunt-force way possible. <\/p>\n

Agent Steve gives Trevor the job of torturing our victim while Michael and Agent Dave go to the other side of the city to do the assassination. The problem is that Trevor has no reason to go along with any of this. We just spent an entire (overly long) chapter establishing that Trevor is fearless, single-minded, and capable of violence on a shocking scale. He hates being bossed around, he hates when people are rude to him, he hates the government, and he’s basically unstoppable. And now he’s taking orders from a condescending government jackass in a polo shirt and the story doesn’t even give us a fig leaf excuse for why. It doesn’t even look like agent Steve is armed!<\/p>\n

Left: A totally annoying prick who we want to kill the moment we meet him. Right: The only sympathetic guy in all of GTA V. Guess which one we torture?<\/div>
Left: A totally annoying prick who we want to kill the moment we meet him. Right: The only sympathetic guy in all of GTA V. Guess which one we torture?<\/div><\/p>\n

Yes, you could argue that maybe Trevor is in the mood for some torture. I can believe that. Except, wouldn’t he torture Agent Steve instead? The designated victim is a complete stranger to Trevor and means nothing to him. Meanwhile, Steve is smug, irritating, and deliberately going out of his way to piss Trevor off. Yes, the FIB has leverage over Michael. But they have no such leverage over Trevor. <\/p>\n

The moment Trevor doesn’t strap Steve into the torture chair and go to work on him, this entire scenario collapses. This is not at all a plausible sequence of events. Sure, we can come up with some fanfiction that might explain Trevor’s behavior. But if you’re going to force the player to do something really unpleasant as part of some sanctimonious lecture \/ mission, then the reasoning behind it needs to be airtight and not reeking of contrivances.<\/p>\n

Just to make it all as pointless as possible, the victim pleads with you to ask him questions because he’s already willing to talk<\/i>. The writer is railroading us through this ridiculous mess so they can beat us over the head with the idea that “torture is bad”, and their presentation of the topic gives us a nonsensical strawman scenario that undercuts their point. Even a pro-torture thinker will readily admit there is nothing to be gained from torturing this guy. Which makes it feel like the writer doesn’t actually understand the debate. If they were actually going to take some sort of coherent swipe at the topic, then they really ought to present it in the context of the usual “ticking time bomb” hypotheticalAnd then to make their point, show the bomb wasn’t real, or the information was unreliable, or the problem was otherwise solved through non-torture means, etc. Whatever. I’m against clumsy brute-force political allegory in general, but if you’re going to do it then at least do it properly<\/i>.<\/span>. <\/p>\n

Either torture this guy or turn the game off. Those are your options.<\/div>
Either torture this guy or turn the game off. Those are your options.<\/div><\/p>\n

You must torture the subject several times, with the game encouraging you to try a different implement of torture each time. Your available tools are:<\/p>\n