There are, but the people administering the punishments are supposed to be able to go back into normal society, and real actual sadists and psychos are too "into it" to make good executioners.
A simple pre-christian hanging is lots worse. You don't choke or suffocate, because you are hung on wood, meaning you are tied to a tree trunk a c…
There are, but the people administering the punishments are supposed to be able to go back into normal society, and real actual sadists and psychos are too "into it" to make good executioners.
A simple pre-christian hanging is lots worse. You don't choke or suffocate, because you are hung on wood, meaning you are tied to a tree trunk a couple of meters up, and then left there alive for Ygg's ravens.
Or impalement, where the stake isn't driven through the body but is gently inserted between the back meat at the coccyx and the threaded up to the skull. The victim is given a platform to stand on, while his back slowly rots away and turns gangreous and he descends into madness.
Both of these can take weeks to kill the victim, depending on circumstances.
But are you really sure you want to be able to do that to another human?
"Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord." I remember reading about the impalement thing in Ivo Andric's epic saga of the Balkans, "The Bridge on the Drino". The two men in charge of carrying out the execution were told that if they botched the job and the poor fellow died too quickly, they would suffer the same fate.
Then there was Catherine the Great, who ordered that a pair of rebels be put to work constructing a massive metal cauldron. It took them many days - all the while knowing that they were to be its first contents. A most refined torture.
Did not Odin hang himself in sacrifice on Yggdrasil for nine day and nine nights in order to gain knowledge of other worlds? A precursor of the crucifixion of Christ, by the sound of it.
I thought we had moved beyond such barbarity. Silly me! And then, I began hearing the stories of sick patients left to starve and rot while denied access to their loved ones, or put on medications that make them sicker and lifelong addicts, etc.. There needs to be punishment to fit the crime.
There are, but the people administering the punishments are supposed to be able to go back into normal society, and real actual sadists and psychos are too "into it" to make good executioners.
A simple pre-christian hanging is lots worse. You don't choke or suffocate, because you are hung on wood, meaning you are tied to a tree trunk a couple of meters up, and then left there alive for Ygg's ravens.
Or impalement, where the stake isn't driven through the body but is gently inserted between the back meat at the coccyx and the threaded up to the skull. The victim is given a platform to stand on, while his back slowly rots away and turns gangreous and he descends into madness.
Both of these can take weeks to kill the victim, depending on circumstances.
But are you really sure you want to be able to do that to another human?
"Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord." I remember reading about the impalement thing in Ivo Andric's epic saga of the Balkans, "The Bridge on the Drino". The two men in charge of carrying out the execution were told that if they botched the job and the poor fellow died too quickly, they would suffer the same fate.
Then there was Catherine the Great, who ordered that a pair of rebels be put to work constructing a massive metal cauldron. It took them many days - all the while knowing that they were to be its first contents. A most refined torture.
I bet it would take me a lot more days.
Hadn't heard of those. They make the blood-eagle sound humane by comparison.
Did not Odin hang himself in sacrifice on Yggdrasil for nine day and nine nights in order to gain knowledge of other worlds? A precursor of the crucifixion of Christ, by the sound of it.
Are you really sure the perpetrators are human?
Biologically speaking, pretty sure they are yes.
Well, I am caught on the horns of a moral dilemma, then.
I thought we had moved beyond such barbarity. Silly me! And then, I began hearing the stories of sick patients left to starve and rot while denied access to their loved ones, or put on medications that make them sicker and lifelong addicts, etc.. There needs to be punishment to fit the crime.