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DoctorBocker t1_j36okvm wrote

Not gonna lie, I always thought the wheel was more involved in the 'breaking' part.

Now I know it's just pageantry.

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c2srq t1_j36otza wrote

The original Breaking Bad.

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Ulgeguug t1_j36p0c2 wrote

The list of hideous torturous degrading sick ways of killing people devised by human beings is very long.

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PomatoTotalo t1_j36pea5 wrote

Read up on the Münster rebellion. Nasty stuff there.

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Kalappianer t1_j36q5ay wrote

Oh... my... god. I've used "radbrækket" without actually knowing the origin!

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ElfMage83 t1_j36s0no wrote

TIL that the Catherine wheel has another name.

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CrueltyJuggernaut t1_j36ueum wrote

Medieval people were brutal bro, there is a long list of sick torture methods they liked to do.

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SuicidalGuidedog t1_j36usm7 wrote

It feels a lot like the wheel is superfluous to this execution. My final words would probably be "sure, I mean it hurts, but why call it a Breaking Wheel? You could have broken my limbs and tied them to just about anything... hey, come back, I'm not done berating you."

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Proper-Emu1558 t1_j36w4f1 wrote

Imagine what advances we could have made in other areas if we just stopped working so hard to torture and kill each other.

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jeffyoulose t1_j372r5q wrote

So this is what Daenerys meant by "break the wheel" in Game of Thrones.

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RPi79 t1_j3742kr wrote

If this freaks you out, check out Scaphism or "the boats"

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coyote-1 t1_j375t8s wrote

The opening scene of Monty Python and the Holy Grail

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Susefreak t1_j377pq8 wrote

So did the surname Wheeler come from the surviving ones or the people who delivered the Breaking Wheel torture?

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_hic-sunt-dracones_ t1_j378r9p wrote

Replying to DoctorBocker (#1,294,817)

It was in a way. The person was straped to a wheel laying on the ground. Then they used another wheel (vertical) and smashed in the gaps between the spokes to break the limbs. Then the wattled those limbs through the spokes, errected the wheel again and let nature do the rest.

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tatertot225 t1_j37coat wrote

Sounds like a good method for chomos AKA pedophiles aka woodchipper food

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LP99 t1_j37g196 wrote

Replying to Ulgeguug (#1,294,834)

> In the second act, the body was braided into another wooden spoked wheel, which was possible through the broken limbs, or tied to the wheel. The wheel was then erected on a mast or pole, like a crucifixion.

The history of mankind is very, very depraved.

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Black_Moons t1_j37gv00 wrote

Replying to neoplastic_pleonasm (#1,295,279)

I feel like that is what happened when they where told that 'using the wheel' was a method of torture/execution, but nobody really asked how it was done until it came time to do it to somebody.

"Dunno man.... get some wooden blocks and run him over with it? I heard we're supposed to break his bones or something"

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badbubbahotep t1_j37h4il wrote

Buddhism has thought up some pretty creative ways to kill people without people having to do the dirty work. Sewing people up in wet yak skins and then laying them out in the sun to dry and slowly shrink, squeezing the person sewn inside to death is pretty macabre.

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drew1010101 t1_j37o7km wrote

I saw one of these at the museum of torture in Heidelberg Germany.

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Khelthuzaad t1_j37ord7 wrote

Replying to LP99 (#1,295,988)

In retrospect the countries with the worst kind of torture were the ones with the most civil unrest or elites fearing the normal people.They were uncanny cruel not because they hated the person,but because they didn't wanted the people to mimic their actions.There were also double standards,with men getting lesser punishment for the death of abuse of women.

China for example has a very very long history of battling itself rather than other regions

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rubemechanical t1_j37sos7 wrote

There was a Dan Carlin podcast about the Münster Rebellion (I think), and one of the things I learned was that when you were sentenced to an hour of torture…it was an hour of TORTURE - the clock stopped when you fell unconscious, so they’d wait until you revived before setting in again.

Deplorable.

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phirebird t1_j37vnse wrote

It's a good thing this form of torture was saved for only the most heinous of cringes, like pirating software

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CinnnaBunn t1_j381zmj wrote

I know I'll regret asking this... But does anyone have an example of what braiding limbs looks like?

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InstanceDelicious987 t1_j38426j wrote

Dan Carlins hardcore history had a very large breakdown of this, as I recall there was many different versions

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lostan t1_j3875c6 wrote

And... there's my daily dose of horrifying atrocities.

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khansian t1_j3877de wrote

Replying to Proper-Emu1558 (#1,295,079)

To the contrary, we should wonder why so many societies felt it necessary to torture people in such terrible ways.

We look back on this now from our relatively peaceful, safe, and wealthy lives. But these things happened at a time when something as simple as a band of thieves operating on a highway could mean death for those who get robbed, starvation of those victims’ families, and a mini-recession for the towns whose main trade route was disrupted.

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Jjex22 t1_j38qtwd wrote

Replying to LP99 (#1,295,988)

At least this one didn’t require a particularly sick train of thought to come up with I guess? We invented cart wheels, people got run over by them and their bones broke, then when we wanted to torture someone we were like ‘hey remember when Timmy got run over by that cart? That fucking hurt… grab a wheel!’

But yeah, from a modern lens it’s quite hard to really envisage just how horrific we were to each other in the past

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BaidenFallwind t1_j392cks wrote

Replying to Ulgeguug (#1,294,834)

Here's the thing: I agree, along with hundreds of others. But as soon as there's some psychopath who tortured, raped, and murdered children, there will be more who deeply wish we could return to such brutality.

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Ulgeguug t1_j393vxa wrote

Replying to BaidenFallwind (#1,298,396)

I think that there's a brutal impulse that is at odds with our moral aspirations, and certainly our desire to fit into a civilized society. I think that impulse tends to seek out outlets where it's socially acceptable to be brutal or fantasize about it. "Flaying another human being alive while starving rats eat the eyes out of their face is sick, evil, no one should ever fantasize about doing that to anyone EXCEPT Nazis child molesters terrorists rapists enslavers ooh yeah we should torture them mmmm torture the fuck out of them"

Like the deplorable people who exist in the world are used as an excusable outlet for repressed sadism and cruelty. It allows us to conflate those impulses with feelings of righteous vindication. Anyone who's watched the bad guy in a movie die a grisly death of humiliation and pain with any feeling of satisfaction understands this.

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ShortOldFatGuy t1_j39aa0e wrote

Replying to Skythewood (#1,296,465)

Amazing how external threats (those wonderful Mongols, et. al.) always manage to bring about brotherly love between fueding families. It can even inspire family projects - like a wall around the middle kingdom. As a footnote, Machevelli counseled rulers in The Prince that if they feared internal foes most - then build walls. If external foes were the greatest danger, then do not build them. (Wonder if Trump was basing his Mexican wall plan on this counsel?)

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Ulgeguug t1_j39bezm wrote

Replying to RedTheDopeKing (#1,297,006)

While this is true, I think that humanity has developed quite a lot.

The idea, for instance, that you should publicly gruesomely execute people, while it still exists in places, has declined dramatically over the past couple centuries. It was only a few decades ago that firebombing civilian populations and burning entire cities alive was just one of those things you do in war.

There's a terrifying race going on between our advancement as human beings and our advancement in the capacity of barbarity.

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honeytimer t1_j39djmx wrote

To all of you decrying the sick nature of humanity, you clicked on it lol

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RedTheDopeKing t1_j39duz8 wrote

Replying to Ulgeguug (#1,298,754)

That’s still one of the things you do in war, we just have less war now. It’s not gone forever I promise you. Russia is using rockets to destroy infrastructure in Ukraine, taking their power offline, trying to freeze people in winter.

I think people are the same as we always have been, deep down, and always will be. I don’t think we’re striving towards one day having some utopia, people like to ignore the ugly side of humanity but it’s there.

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Halvus_I t1_j39qf82 wrote

Replying to CrueltyJuggernaut (#1,295,025)

We are STILL brutal. Executions in the USA could absolutely be painless, but States that carry them out actually assert that their justice system is retributive and intend for the condemned to suffer.

If not for the national prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment, i assure you States in the US would resort to death torture.

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BiscuitCrumbsInBed t1_j39rt86 wrote

The people who first invented these methods of torture/murder were some serious sickos!!

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oldskool2202 t1_j39uxaj wrote

Should be used for crimes committed like Brian K

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Son_of_Plato t1_j3a23el wrote

So the pinwheel skeletons From Dark Souls must be people that died on breaking wheels...

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Joshew90 t1_j3aax3g wrote

Did you listen to hardcore history?

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SonofBeckett t1_j3acgqj wrote

I know, right? Meanwhile, Microsoft just reduced their monthly reward bonus from 1000 to 500 points for the Completionist reward. Life's tough in every era.

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jigga19 t1_j3b171w wrote

Check out scaphism for truly gnarly method.

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Sgt_Fox t1_j3b6wsw wrote

I knew about the 2nd part, but I always thought they tied the person to the perimeter of a heavy wheel and then rolled the wheel across a track to break the bones

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Ulgeguug t1_j3bhg2q wrote

Replying to [deleted] (#1,301,200)

>Criminals are in prisons with HVAC, gyms, TV , 3 meals a day …

Except when they're in prisons without HVAC being subjected to heat, or being regularly subjected to extended solitary confinement, or beatings and other abuses, or put in deliberate danger including of sexual assault, or in the case of those that are abducted from other countries and deprived the dubious rights and protections granted prisoners and subjected to torture, either euphemized or not.

Like the idea that prisoners getting "3 meals" means it's not cruel simply because you're not literally starving them, even if that food is unfit for human consumption and is often unsafe for human consumption, is pretty callous.

I'm a big fan of the constitution, like, I have a favorite Federalist paper big fan, but in terms of how successful we've been at upholding it, either in letter or spirit, we are sorely lacking.

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Holdem88 t1_j3es3qk wrote

Train stations makes a good choice.

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