And I was a little disappointed. Two weeks later, I learned the identity of the docile mope in the video who'd fed himself so calmly into the torture machine. I felt like I'd been kicked in the gut. The only reason I could conceive of for selecting him for the video was that some of what was done to him had been real. I spent a really bad week wondering if I should check my self in to a therapist.
Rationalization is a wonderful thing.
It worked for me. When I finally calmed down I realized that I'm no sadist. A nd that that gut-wrenching process could well have been exactly the kind of impact that Reznor was aiming for. The only way to achieve it would be by using someone like Flanagan. But knowledge of Flanagan's identity opened new doors of meaning in the song, and the video.