janecarnall (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} janecarnall) wrote, |
I'm enjoying the story much more then I thought I would. When I started reading I was as another commentor said "horrified and fascinated".
You have done a very good job of making the characters into real people, behaving in ways that I can see people in horrible situations acting.
This has been interesting for me too, because the original idea started out as almost a formulaic exercise in "what if" - put all these people in the same house. Writing it as wrimowrimo meant I've found out more than I usually do about these characters in a shorter space of time than usual - but it's been fun.
I saw part of a documentary about American use of torture and it had two lawyers (?) discussing it, one British and the other American. The American was against torture,except in the most extreme cases (nuclear bomb about to go off, need the info now). Then he wanted special allowance to torture the person, given only in the extreme cases.
The British man, said no, that if a decision is made to torture someone then the person ordering and performing the torture should be fully aware that they are breaking the law and will face the full consequences of doing so.
Yeah. During the 1970s (maybe earlier, but we know about the 1970s), the UK tortured members of the IRA. It didn't work - in fact, it had the predictable effect of making the IRA more popular and IRA members more hardbitten. And it was justified in just the same way as US justifications of torture. And it's now been just commonplace that the torture and abrogation of prisoners' rights that went on during the 1970s was completely counterproductive: what worked was the negotiations with terrorists that John Major began and Tony Blair finished. So Brits are coming at this from a different perspective... that and we're definitely post-imperial and Americans are still imperial.darkrose points out that the USNA is "the Empire".
These people appear to be doing horrible things for a greater good, it is interesting how you have each trying to keep their own humanity. I kinda doubt that Sam has fully managed to keep his.
Struggling a bit with part 3: I got less than 800 words written yesterday. But still ploughing on...
You have done a very good job of making the characters into real people, behaving in ways that I can see people in horrible situations acting.
This has been interesting for me too, because the original idea started out as almost a formulaic exercise in "what if" - put all these people in the same house. Writing it as wrimowrimo meant I've found out more than I usually do about these characters in a shorter space of time than usual - but it's been fun.
I saw part of a documentary about American use of torture and it had two lawyers (?) discussing it, one British and the other American. The American was against torture,except in the most extreme cases (nuclear bomb about to go off, need the info now). Then he wanted special allowance to torture the person, given only in the extreme cases.
The British man, said no, that if a decision is made to torture someone then the person ordering and performing the torture should be fully aware that they are breaking the law and will face the full consequences of doing so.
Yeah. During the 1970s (maybe earlier, but we know about the 1970s), the UK tortured members of the IRA. It didn't work - in fact, it had the predictable effect of making the IRA more popular and IRA members more hardbitten. And it was justified in just the same way as US justifications of torture. And it's now been just commonplace that the torture and abrogation of prisoners' rights that went on during the 1970s was completely counterproductive: what worked was the negotiations with terrorists that John Major began and Tony Blair finished. So Brits are coming at this from a different perspective... that and we're definitely post-imperial and Americans are still imperial.
darkrose points out that the USNA is "the Empire".These people appear to be doing horrible things for a greater good, it is interesting how you have each trying to keep their own humanity. I kinda doubt that Sam has fully managed to keep his.
Struggling a bit with part 3: I got less than 800 words written yesterday. But still ploughing on...