Proper Torture Techniques , Vol . 8 Content . Love , the Mortal Weakness One of the more confusing phenomena of the mortal condition is that peculiar emotional state known as love , in which one mortal feigns an irrational and unconditional affection for another mortal . This state , unknown to the denizens of His Majesty ' s realm , is the most puzzling for a torturer to understand , foreign as the concept is , but lurking within this emotional quality are many avenues for simulating this state and therefore manipulating the torture subject into submitting to our will . Love , as it is , is a very powerful force , and it is through love that most mortals perform their greatest and most heroic deeds . Though love can be directed at any number of abstract concepts — love for the Empire , love for one ' s personal deity , love for one ' s home — these are more tenuous forms of the emotion and thus less effective for our torture methods . Manipulating love for abstract concepts is best served for souring a mortal ' s disposition in peaceful times , not for extracting information while in the torture chamber . Rather , if one wishes to use love as an effective torture method , the love of one mortal for another mortal is by far the strongest , and thus the most efficient and powerful , source for manipulation . Whereas love for an abstraction exists solely within a mortal ' s mind , the love for another person exists in the physical realm , and its tangibility amplifies its effect on a mortal ' s soul . A mortal may love , say , his career as a baker , but there is not one single thing which defines that love , and thus the affection is a complex thread of interwoven objects inside his mental faculties . But when a child loves his mother , he has only one mother , and if that is taken away from him , there would be only a void with which to fulfill that love . Thus , a proper torturer must focus on the love for another mortal in order to effectively torture a mortal soul . Now the question remains : How does one use the love for another mortal as a method of torture ? The answer is entirely dependent on the relationship of the tortured soul and the object of their affection . Familial love , the love between members of the same family , is most effectively pursued by reinforcing the concept of loss . If a mother loves her child , she would be unable to bear losing that child . Thus , presenting a vision of the child to the mother and then taking it away — either through death or kidnapping — would be an effective means of torture . Love between friends , though , is best portrayed as constant and inevitable betrayal or overt treachery on behalf of the assumed friend . If a torturer happens upon a mortal who holds secret desires for another mortal , particularly in the nature of nuptial love or carnal love , but for which this love is not fulfilled — mortals call this " unrequited love " — then that torturer has the most enticing and powerful version of love with which to use . A mortal ' s petty sense of identity and its futile need to fulfill its desires is one of the defining characteristics of mortal existence , and the sometimes lifelong ambition to achieve one ' s goals is the driving force for many mortal beings throughout their short and ultimately meaningless lives . Offering a mortal even the slightest indulgence of their unrequited desires , empty and false as it may be , is to entice the very essence of their ambitions and to stoke their basest emotional needs . If a torturer can invoke these instincts from the victim , then the success of the torture is practically guaranteed .