I need the Big Bad of my story to force some of my characters into doing tasks for her, namely manipulating all the other characters into thinking she's good. All the characters have powers, but the characters she's forcing to do her bidding have powers related to people's emotions, perceptions, and other similar stuff. For example, one character can manipulate dreams, so the Big Bad uses him to plant suggestions/ideas into their dreams. If the dream manipulation doesn't work how the Big Bad wants it to, the character's animals are killed/tortured in front of him (and his animals are his world.) I need something like that for three more characters. One that can create anything, one that can manipulate emotions, and one that can mind control others. It was easy for me to do the first character, as I knew he loved animals, my other characters don't really have those kinds of connections. Any and all help is appreciated!
It's kinda hard to answer this because I don't know your characters, but here goes one possibility. - If the mind control character is married (or any other character) and has kids then you can torture him/her mentally by torturing his/her family physically in front of him/her (assuming that the character can't just mind control the villain). - Also, you can always just torture them physically, is a character male, just kick him in the groin repeatedly, trust me, it hurts... a lot, or you can just research torture methods, like lingchi (dead by a thousand cuts), the heretic's fork, the Judas cradle, the rack, the chinese water torture (i don't know if it has an actual name) or just a good ol' boil.
Torture is simple on a physical spectrum. A dark room, with no sounds and no stimuli. After 3 days, the person inside may literally go insane Also, thirst. I do not know if you have ever truly been thirsty. But you would do anything for just s drop of water. The same goes for hunger. Hunger is slower, thrust is quicker. On a mental spectrum. It usually involved “breaking” the main defining point of an individual. Is he a pacifist? Then make him kill his own children and watch. Is he a family man? Then make him watch his family die. Everyone had something or someone that they care for.or at least, everyone had one. If they don’t then they become difficult to control as they cannot lose anything. Even the most suicidal attempts are a win-win for them. In that case. Make them care for something Or go after their mental traits. Plenty of ways to torture people. Some of them are very passive. For the person that can control emotions. Then just fear would be enough. For the person that can control other people, then make them do the opposite of what their would normally do or want to do (the more horrific the better).
Also, as pointed out earlier, without knowledge of those characters.. it is difficult to come up with suggestions ,
Yeah, I definitely didn't give enough information. Sorry about that, I'm usually worried that I give out too many unnecessary details but this is obviously a question where details would probably help. First of all, these characters don't actually have families (for a reason) they weren't born and they can't reproduce. They do have some bonds between themselves and other characters though. The Big Bad doesn't want to hurt the other characters, because she wants them to like her, and she's using these characters to accomplish this. Creation, can create anything (obviously), she's only close to one or two other characters and she's the one who created all of Dream's (the character I used as an example) animals before the Big Bad came along. After all of the animals were killed, however, the Big Bad forces her to make more so they can keep punishing Dream when he messes up, Creation feels really bad about that. The Big Bad just makes Creation create things for her. Emotion, can control peoples emotions and she can also feel their emotions, maybe the Big Bad can use Dream's emotions against her? Like in a "Look at this poor child who is emotionally distraught over his pets and manipulating his friends. Do what we say or we kill more animals in front of him." kind of way. It kind of feels cheap to me but I'm not sure about anything right now. Order, who can force people to follow orders, got into a huge argument with Chaos before the Big Bad arrived. I hadn't decided what the argument was about yet, I was just laying the groundwork for why they don't get along later in the story. I knew whatever the argument was about was going to eff Order up and make him way more insecure about his abilities and how he uses them. Maybe I can have the Big Bad manipulate him using that? I know this doesn't seem like a lot, but at this point in the narrative, none of them has much of a backstory besides Order, because technically this is the backstory. It's what causes the characters to go the routes they went and how they became the people they are, as well as creates a lot of complex relationships between the characters.
It seems that you're halfway through, you just need to identify a way to control creation, order, and chaos so even though we still don't really know basically anything about them let's tackle that. - For creation, you could use those two characters against her, either by treats or the villain could manipulate these 2 characters into doing her dirty work. - For order, I don't think insecurity in the use of his special powers is enough to manipulate him, if the argument left him being insecure in most aspects of his life instead of just the abilities it could work. - For chaos... we really don't know shit about him, but manipulating him (her?) could be achieved via making order, well... order him around. I need to repeat myself, for us to pull out our inner sadist and help you with this in a more concrete manner we would need to know a lot about the characters, names, likes, dislikes, backstories, relationships, dreams, etc... basically we would need to read the book and work backward... or maybe that's just me. Actually, now that I think about it, technically the villain just has to control order and puff, problem solved.
Chaos isn't present for this part of the story, he basically ditches them all after his fight with Order and isn't there when the Big Bad shows up. Maybe I can use this to my advantage though? If Chaos had been there when the Big Bad started pulling this kind of stuff, things wouldn't have ended well for them. Chaos can't be controlled, that's his whole schtick and at this point of the story the Big Bad's aren't at the power level and don't have the advantages they'll get to later in the story. So maybe the others don't know why Chaos left, and Order blames himself for essentially getting rid of the only person that could help them out of the situation? Maybe the Big Bad threatens to tell the others that it's Order's fault that they're going through this unless he complies. Or maybe I can play with the idea of the characters performing these evil tasks to spare the others from doing it instead. An "If you don't do it I'll make character X do it instead." But I feel like those issues could be resolved by actually talking to each other. With Emotion perhaps I could play with the Big Bad having the power to turn her empathy off. Emotion can feel everybody's emotions, and though she can control it, she can't turn it off. Turning it off can have adverse effects on her, and maybe turning it back on suddenly can be painful to bear. At this point, I have some ideas to play with but nothing concrete. But having these kinds of back and forth really helps me process ideas, so I'm grateful for the responses!
Well, glad to be of help, but honestly I don't really know what else to add so... good luck, have fun.
This is a very hard question to answer but I'll do my best: I would go to the basic needs. Make a character feel constantly thirsty, hungry and icy cold. Make a certain memory replay in their mind something that caused pain, embarrassment or hatred. Ever have a memory of something that sometimes sneaks into your thoughts and you cringe and push it aside? Imagine if you couldn't do that. A few years ago my Dad was in hospital and he died before I could get there. I didn't know he'd died and walked into the room. He laid their dead in the bed. I could never shake that horrible imagine from my mind and whenever it tries to creep in I push it aside. I'd rather remember him alive and had I known he was gone I wouldn't have chosen to see him like that. Some memory is a powerful thing. You could also remove memories. So a important person in their life is erased from their memory (but appears in dreams as a stranger is you like) so the character constantly feels like something important is missing from their lives but they don't know what. That's my best shots anyway
Why should we torture our characters? For the sake of the torture? Or for the sake of the story? Two separate questions. Two separate answers. What shape does this torture take?
So like if two siblings were being jerks to each other, and one has the other doing their chores. You monster.
Really??? Under no circumstances??? Why??? You are blocking a hefty chunk of human history, why is that???
Well I always have to put myself into my characters shoes. I can only go with how I feel. Humans are weak and torture is not something anyone can get used to ever. History or not torture is unacceptable. It is the worst implementation to ever plague this earth. It has to go. And so through literature that opposes it it should eventually dissipate. One has to start somewhere.
Nothing wrong with torture when you portray it as such. I have an MC that tortures people in really nasty ways, and an MC that gets tortured. You just need to make it actually something horrific is all. Hell I think that is a fundamental feature of the Dark Eldarr in the WH40K universe. They have a need to feed on peoples suffering, by doing horrible shit to those they capture and enslave. Look them up, and you will see just how messed up a fictional species can be, and how their culture works.
My MC, Kristol get's tortured by having to hear the main antagonist boast about how great he is and how his army is going to destroy hers. LOL. P.S. his army sucks.
You are aware that writing a torture scene doesn't mean that neither the writer nor the work are in favor of torture right??? Just like writing a rape scene doesn't mean that the writer is ok with rape, and the same goes for murder scenes, wars, bullying and all kinds of unpleasant things. Is torture awful??? Yes, should we keep doing it??? No, does ignoring a problem helps to solve it??? Of course not. When you read a torture/rape scene in a book it usually comes from the villains, you know, eeeeevil guys doing eeeevil things. You mention literature that opposes torture, I respect that and agree that it could help, buuuuuuuuuuuut... how are you going to do it without torture??? You don't necessarily need a torture scene but the presence of torture would be necessary, in fact, I would go as far as to say that at least one of the main/supporting characters would need to be tortured in the book, you don't need to change P.O.V. and show the torture, but you do need to show the character afterward with all the things that torture entails. Let's say you write a novel where... I dunno... the evil government tortures people for no good reason so your merry band of characters starts/join a rebellion to stop the government or whatever, the idea is good, kinda star wars-eske but good. Your reader would be expecting the torture and its consequences to be present in the story, but if you only mention that the government is torturing people instead of showing it, then the reader will feel detached, it would be like the heroes are fighting an evil that isn't really there. I mean, imagine the 1st Star Wars movie (A New Hope) without the scene where the empire blows up Alderan and without the scene were Luke's uncles are fucked, you wouldn't have a reason to support the rebellion, even if they say that the empire is evil you have literally no reason to believe it.
How can literature oppose it if, following your insistence, literature is never allowed to refer to it?
Do you mean physical torture, which I don't know if I could write about, or do you mean psychological torture; i.e., tortures that the mind inflicts upon you?
So, all the problems of the world should be totally ignored, and never mentioned in writing? Well....no.
