GTA V - Amnesty condemns torture scene

[Hazy]

What? The entire mission, the other characters are questioning how shaky the info is.

And then after, there's a little rant about how great and effective torture is by the crazy character which is so openly satirical and conveying to the (paying attention, thinking) player that its useless, that I feel like Amnesty are just making fun of us by suggesting otherwise.

^ Bingo. Did you people miss the tirade Trevor spews afterwards? It's satirical as fuck, highlighting just how terrible of a method torture really is when it comes to extrapolating information.

Also, aren't you able to use nothing but the same torture method the entire time? So, it's as brutal as you want it to be. Shame on you if you decide to pull a man's tooth out.

 

[Tony2077]

You're playing a bad guy. Hell, even PETA understood that with Overlord II's seal beating. "You're supposed to be evil, so clubbing seals is saying its an evil thing to do"

considering some of the things i've heard about peta that seem hypocritical

 

[white_wolf]

I'm fine with me as the player being tortured like in MGS but when they want you to torture a character in order to get a story across I hate it even if its emotional torture and toying to get it done I hate it. I will admit I haven't seen this games potrayl of it but I made the mistake of going to see Saw without knowing all that much about it beyond two guys trapped in a room thinking there would be some gore and scare tactics but not all the torture and boy that was a mistake! I don't buy the video game of saw either and I hope games never strive to reach that type of unnecessary violence. If that's what some publishes want to do then go the Japanese route and make a new genre for it over there they've got twisted freak games so if the game developers want violence porn games make it be a genre and away from normal action titles.

I also wish they'd make torture apart of the games warnings like gore, nudity, and drug use already are if they aren't going to make a new genere for it this way no buyer surprise as the term extreme violence and gore is open to each player's and non gamer's interpretation of this broad word. Maybe make the rating in two forms so G-Torture (game) = Torture done to the main lead by game npcs. Games like MGS fall here or P-Torture (plot) = Torture done by the main character so as to advance the plot in this way the plot will not continue until the torture is done by the player on the npc by hearing of it only I think GTAV falls into this category.

 

[LetalisK]

For those who haven't played the game but want context:

Why did they call it IAA? I get FIB as a sucker punch, but IAA doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Gergar12_v1legacy]

An interesting article here about a mandatory torture scene in GTA V:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/18/grand-theft-auto-5-under-fire-for-graphic-torture-scene

What do you think? I have to say I'm with Amnesty here (apart from the obligatory 'children may see it' nonsense - seriously, why don't they get called out about that? You wouldn't let your 5-year old watch Scarface). I think it's pretty bad to not only put the player in the position of a torturing protagonist, but also to imply that information obtained under torture is reliable.

I stopped watching 24 after it started getting ridiculously torture-happy, and this pretty much decides me on not getting GTA V (not that I was particularly bothered in the first place, I've never enjoyed them much despite the amazing world-building)

Why not go... You know condemning real torture. You would think that with Syria, and Egypt, they would have better things to do.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

For those who haven't played the game but want context:

Why did they call it IAA? I get FIB as a sucker punch, but IAA doesn't make sense to me.

International Affairs Agency, apparently. If you say it fast enough it sounds kind of like CIA I suppose. I don't entirely get it either.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I saw the scene on YouTube, It was painful to watch. It made me hate Trevor even more.

 

[FoxKitsune]

In the current story I'm writing a character tortures another, and I couldn't bring myself to write the scene, but rather did the before and after cop out. The thing is, without looking up any examples I feel confident in saying we've seen torture and similar dark themes explored in other mediums before. It really does seem like GTAV is getting condemned because-

A) It's GTA, a series that makes itself a target based on it's content and general premise, and
B) It's a videogame, which despite the industry's best efforts is still looked down on by some as a lesser artistic medium, and therefore less deserving of tackling these issues.

Cards on the table, I've not played the torture scene yet. I'm not far in, literally just got Michael but am taking it slow while trying to get work done. That said, I'm fairly certain the scene's going to disturb me, and I darn well hope it does. That's what I want from a GTA game in the same way that I want to be scared when I watch a horror movie, or I want a comedy to make me laugh. GTA is a game you should be able to go into with the expectation that it's going to make you feel really uncomfortable at some point, because at it's very core it's supposed to be a hideous, over the top parody of all humanity's worst qualities.

 

[TheKrigeron]

Here's an idea, Everytime you comment post *PLAYED THAT PART* or *DIDN'T PLAY THAT PART* at the beginning of the post, to not get the wrong idea

 

[Vykrel]

I think it's pretty bad to not only put the player in the position of a torturing protagonist, but also to imply that information obtained under torture is reliable.

Trevor (the torturer) actually goes on a rant not long afterwards that torture is not reliable at all. also, if you listen to the in-game radio stations, you can catch the various news stories related to your actions in the game. one of the stories involves the fact that the information given during the torture bit led to the death of an innocent person.

it was far from implying that torture was reliable. they made the exact opposite quite clear.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

So a game where you can mow down hundreds of innocent people with an assault rifle is under fire for having a scene where you torture a guy?

But that aside, Trevor is an emotionally unstable psychotic. Nothing he does is really painted as glorified anyways.

 

[Kingjackl]

I just completed the torture scene; it was brutal and definitely made me uncomfortable, but I can forgive it on artistic grounds. It's clearly not intended to glorify torture, as both the character doing the torture and the ones giving the orders were depicted as horrible people, while great pains were taken (no pun intended, that would be horrible) to show the victim as sympathetic and that torture does not work as a method of extracting information. If it isn't obvious by the end of the scene, Trevor basically spells the entire message out for you during the conversation afterwards.

 

[Ty Woodard]

lol it wasn't brutal. my regular missions are more brutal when I run over people on the way to them, back over them, get out and beat with a bat any witnesses then hide out from the wanted stars and nade a chopper down first if it got to three, hope I don't get wasted then get back to a mission where I blow something up, shoot like a maniac and always kill a lot of people. Pulling a guy's tooth out and not even watching him seize while you put the jumpers onto him is pretty boring. the only thing I enjoyed was the waterboarding, and I actually went too far with that one. It was funny seeing him try to not choke. It was too much fun. The wrench hit him in the nads, he mentioned the nads before going in and it didn't look like it from the angle but from the whines & the mentioning of the nads I assumed it was the nads he hit. since I only got to hit him once with the wrench, it can be assumed a blow to the nads would have been enough.

 

[BlackJimmy]

I'm pretty sure you're supposed to feel uncomfortable during that scene.
Especially when Trevor outright says that torture for the torturer and not a good way for obtaining information. It's just another way of the GTA games calling out the US Government on there bullshit.
They weren't even subtle about it. Trevor(of all people) could be talking to the real world government instead of Mr K.

 

[purplemonkey555]

It's fiction. Bad things are allowed to happen in fiction. Fiction is allowed to misrepresent reality.

This pretty much sums up what I was going to say. It made me cringe, yeah, but I'm not disgusted by it. I don't think I've ever been disgusted by anything in a game, or a movie, or a tv show, etc., because fiction =/= reality. It isn't real.

 

[DjinnFor]

I think it's pretty bad to not only put the player in the position of a torturing protagonist

I think it's great to put the player in the position of a torturing psychopath, as it makes the message Rockstar was pushing that much more potent, particularly if the player is squeamish about torture or morally opposed to it.

but also to imply that information obtained under torture is reliable.

Good thing Rockstar never implied that, then.

In fact, the entire scene was a brutal deconstruction and shaming of torture both in the fetishism modern entertainment has with it but also its real-world usage by the American military. Trevor, the torturer and "protagonist", literally explains (through a conversation that, while directed to another character, might as well be talking to the player for how blatantly fourth-wall shattering it is), in detail, exactly what that scene was meant to portray a mere handful of seconds after the scene completes.

Anyone who missed Rockstar's insultingly obvious and blatant criticism and disdain for the events it depicted in favor of crying "ew torture" needs to 1) grow the fuck up, 2) leave journalism and the entertainment industry entirely for effectively peddling libelous statements, and 3) go hang themselves in order to save the rest of the world from their utter stupidity.*

*I'm being facetious here, escapist mods, it's only a joke.

 

[deserteagleeye]

It's Grand Theft Auto. Rated M and all that. You don't even need to do the mission to beat the game. Just fail it a couple times and it'll let you skip.

 

[Doom972]

Well people get shot every day in various conflicts around the world as well. It's a real thing. Does this mean we shouldn't have it in video games?

Games like GTA V puts you in a fantasy world where you can get away with horrible things that can be done in real life as well. That's its purpose, and the reason it sold so well.

Children have no reason to play an age 18+ game, and are therefore irrelevant to the subject.

It's Grand Theft Auto. Rated M and all that. You don't even need to do the mission to beat the game. Just fail it a couple times and it'll let you skip.

You can skip a mission after failing at it twice? How come no review I read/watched mentioned this? Now this is a real flaw with the game.

 

[Mersadeon]

Did they condemn the torture scene in James Bond? Or in any book that has one? Of course not. Because videogames, you know. Videogames.

Don't get me wrong, Amnesty is way cool. Those guys do good work. But if they wanna do this PETA style, I'll loose respect real fast.

In the end, it's about creative freedom. If we have a work of perverse torture porn, then we have that. It's still fiction. It's the whole Dragon's Crown thing again - an artist does not have to apologise for his art. No matter how heinous it might be in my eyes, who am I to tell him to stop it? Nobody forces me to watch it.

...Actually, have any Amnesty-people ever seen anything from Warhammer 40k?

 

[MrGalactus]

An interesting article here about a mandatory torture scene in GTA V:
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/sep/18/grand-theft-auto-5-under-fire-for-graphic-torture-scene

What do you think? I have to say I'm with Amnesty here (apart from the obligatory 'children may see it' nonsense - seriously, why don't they get called out about that? You wouldn't let your 5-year old watch Scarface). I think it's pretty bad to not only put the player in the position of a torturing protagonist, but also to imply that information obtained under torture is reliable.

You remember the bit right after the scene were Trevor and torture victim guy are talking? Torture victim guy would've said everything anyway, and Trevor says he knows, doesn't care, and did it specifically to spite the FIB and give the guy a "cause", in Trevor's head at least. Moral of the story, Steve Haines is a torture-happy **** who rationalised it with the results, and Trevor is a torture happy **** who rationalised it in some weird Trevor kind of way. The torture was neither useful nor necessary to anyone in the story, but had R* played it safe and removed the scene or made it unplayable to ease the potential backlash, they would've been no better off. Compromising the game for the consumer based on the "edgyness" of the content isn't cool.