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Norn torture

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Revision as of 02:15, 20 February 2005 by GreenReaper (talk | contribs)
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Note: There is a lot to be said about norn torture - please use the talk page for this. The article should be restricted to factual statements on norn torture or groups of people's reactions to it.

Torture is defined in the American Heriatige Dictionary as:

Infliction of severe physical pain as a means of punishment or coercion.

Norn torture is the abuse of norns - and, by extension, other creatures - either by simple means such as slapping or by more "interesting" means (such as gengineering a norn to be a chronic alcoholic, or to be always afraid or in pain, or throwing them to a pack of grendels, or . . .). Norn torture has long been a controversial subject in the Creatures Community. Probably every owner has at one time or another has applied the hand to the backside of a Creature - indeed, Lis Morris's Boney Grendels were specifically designed to run away if spanked - and some would argue that the difference between torture and discipline is just a matter of degree.

Steve Grand even predicted norn torture (or at least slaughter) in his norn concept writings:

Equally appealing to children and adults, men and women. Something you wouldn't be ashamed to keep on your office PC. Something a naturalist would want to study, a father would want to teach soccer, a granny to dress up and a complete b***ard to butcher mercilessly.

Norn torture first came to light with a newsgroup post by a supposed norn-torturer. In response, AntiNorn put up a site called Tortured Norns dedicated to the activity and those who perform it, including his first tortured norn, Slave. He subsequently added more tortured norns, pictures, torture-enabling COBs and even recipies (the real-life equivalent of Breaded Hatchling Norn).

What was the response?

Although the tone of response was predictable, the scale of it probably caught AntiNorn by surprise. He reports having recieved death threats on several occasions, and claims that many of the emails he recieved were unprintable (even on his site). Many people restricted themselves to public expressions of disgust in response to his actions. A protest group was set up calling itself Equal Rights For Norns, and members of the Creatures Community attempted to bring his site down at various times by claiming that it was in violation of hosting guidelines.

AntiNorn appeared to care little for this, and a few other sites started up, but they never gained as much attention. However, as well as all the flaming, the situation did lead to a certain amount of discussion on alt.games.creatures over whether or not norns were alive. It brought a focus to the issue that had (perhaps) not been present beforehand.