Notes on Torturing The Character In The Science Facility
my takes on this trope rarely if ever have anything to do with the character being "special" or being studied for powers they innately have, if they are special its something that was done to them
it's about the medical trauma
it's about the violation and lack of bodily autonomy
the "living weapon" trope, but the key characteristic is catastrophic functionality
i love, love, love the concept of "catastrophic functionality" in a person: character that can tank ludicrous amounts of damage and just Keep Going in virtually all circumstances barring outright dismemberment. They can keep going, so do they "deserve" rest and/or pain relief?
after a lifetime of having their distress treated as whiny and unreasonable, they have what would be a dangerously high tolerance to pain and exhaustion.
another key function of the Science Facility is to fix the damage Character takes, maybe using enhanced healing technologies or 3D printed organs or something. this leads to Character's body being treated as relatively disposable cause "we can just fix them"
extreme version of this: Character can't die even if they wanted to
people who work with Character are informed that they're dangerous and arbitrarily violent, and their fear of Character makes it easier to justify restricting autonomy
It is TRUE, cause Character does not have tools to set boundaries or protect their body other than violence. vicious cycle of being perceived as dangerous and therefore denied autonomy, and being forced to use violence to defend autonomy
the restraints used to hold Character look like major overkill, which underscores how dangerous they are. LOVE this trope
character being desexualized to the point that their non-consent to touch, to being stripped down and examined, or to procedures is trivialized. There is no non-clinical context for their body, and the "clinical" framework eclipses any possibility for bodily violation to be understood as violent.
types of uncanniness: Character looks human but has some subtle inhuman traits or characteristics. (I'm obsessed with reflective eye shine, personally.) OR Character looks like they've been taken apart and put back together, like flesh pulled over a much more unforgiving and indestructible metal scaffold. OR Character gives off "undead" vibes; they're just not quite alive in a way that sets off air raid sirens in people's brains
Often, Character is dead and Came Back Wrong (varying levels of literalness)
anyways yeah. i never stopped writing this trope and probably never will. it's a good one
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