episode_0091

A technique of psychological manipulation used on prisoners of war in communist countries during World War II.

According to research by psychiatrist Laurence E. Hinkle and neurologist Harold G. Wolf, the gist was simple.

Cursing, using violence, and trampling on people until they do something they like. Conversely, praise someone when they do something you like.

If this happens repeatedly, the captive ends up thinking only about what he can do to please the other person. The values and human dignity that were previously held are abandoned, and only the desire to be comfortable with the approval of others remains.

And the action that that mind brings is complete submission to the other person. The moment you believe that greater obedience is the only way to escape the current situation, you are convinced of your own obedience.

*

Hyunwoo looked at Hyeji, who was deep in sleep, breathing heavily, and then slowly woke up.

Clean them, soothe them, hug them, pat them. And he praised me a lot and lifted me up.

After playing with her to the fullest, he gently embraced her as if he were a child.

He acted calmly, as if everything was just a moment’s play, and played the role of a caring and affectionate boyfriend.

Although I was acting, I felt a little anxious. After playing with it so horribly, I wonder if acting like this is really effective.

“Puhup.”

A deep sneer appeared on Hyunwoo’s lips as he thought about her reaction again.

Surprisingly, the smoke worked. That too a lot.

Even though Hyeji cried, she quickly regained her composure. After his mind became stable, he even felt proud of Hyunwoo’s comfort, as if he was receiving a deserved reward for his hard work.

How on earth could a person do this?

Even though Hyunwoo could hardly sympathize with other people’s emotions, he also knew what emotions were.

However, I could not empathize with Hyeji’s emotions at all. Because he had never experienced a trauma like Hye-ji, Hyun-woo had no experience in her life that could empathize with her.

To him, Hyeji is just a toy that is ‘unintelligible and bizarre’ yet ‘fun to play with.’

Squeak –

After checking once more that Hyeji was asleep, Hyunwoo opened the door and came out.

He walked slowly towards the study.

I needed to record what happened today in my teaching assistant’s journal and look back on it carefully.

“Phew…”

Hyunwoo stretched, took a refreshing breath, and sat down in front of his desk.

[May 3rd. He treated Hyeji like a prisoner of war. Hit me, curse me, and then praise me. Since they were practically imprisoned, it would be right to treat them appropriately. I think it was a good idea to increase the intensity. Hyeji is already like a prisoner in my hands.]

Summarize a long day in five short sentences.

As can be seen from the contents of the diary, treating her harshly today was somewhat planned.

As she said in her diary, she was already a prisoner.

The habit of following instructions exactly, formed while growing up under an abusive father. The past years of being intimidated and always watching what others thought.

As she grew up with the body and mind of a slave, he bound her tightly with love and locked her in the house. They unconsciously stimulated the loneliness of being alone or the fear of being abandoned, preventing them from rebelling, and held onto their fate by pretending to promise a sweet future.

Because the moment you doubt Hyunwoo, everything that has happened so far will lose meaning.

Because what was believed to be a noble sacrifice for love will end up being a worthless piece of trash.

And because for her it was no different from death.

She was a prisoner who had to silently endure any injustice, surrendered all her rights to the judges and begged for mercy.

Hyunwoo’s use of the brainwashing method that was said to have been practiced in communist countries during World War II was based on that fact.

After asking what was the point of doing dog play that everyone else was doing, he hinted at what he wanted, and then beat and cursed at him in the name of education until he behaved to his liking.

Everything was possible because I was confident that she would not rebel.

Just as there is no captive who wants to survive and hastily rebel, I expected that she, who does not want to be separated and wants to be happy for the rest of her life with Hyunwoo, would also obey unconditionally.

And the prediction was not wrong.

I also lost my family. I also lost my ex-boyfriend, the only person who was by my side. Recently, I lost my job and the house I had been living in ever since I ran away from home.

If you lose your only remaining precious lover when you have nothing left to rely on, it is natural that you will not be able to breathe.

She eventually compromised with herself, remembering the peace that would one day come to her. In order to somehow please Hyunwoo, he chose to constantly exploit himself.

Since Hyeji was far from defending herself or fighting against irrationality from a young age, it was clear that there was no other option but to persevere and persevere.

“Hmm… Anyway, she’s the perfect bitch to make into a slave.”

Hyunwoo pondered her situation and put the ballpoint pen in his hand to his mouth.

The more she thought about it, the more she met all the conditions to be used as a slave. In that case, he needed to work harder to ensure that the conditions were not wasted.

He put down the ballpoint pen in his mouth and carefully read the content he had painstakingly copied.

『No matter how strong-willed a person is, if too much stimulation is given to them while they are tired from brainwashing and torture, they will reach a state of exhaustion at some point and their willpower and judgment will collapse. As a result, we have no choice but to passively accept any request. In this state of understanding, it doesn’t matter what happens.』

A phrase that describes in detail the characteristics of a state of exhaustion. I had just seen with my own eyes what the state of exhaustion was, so its meaning struck me once again.

Looking back, I have never treated her as harshly as I did today. I have experienced ambivalence many times, but this is the first time I have ever been physically abused like this.

She probably won’t have to leave the house for a while. Whether there were bruises, cuts, or swelling where I got hit, there was no need to think about what happened afterwards.

Thanks to this, I was able to freely express my desires and experience the exhaustion caused by brainwashing and torture.

『Furthermore, if you do not see hope in life, you are more likely to become a psychological slave to someone with strong strength and will while your body and mind are depleted, or to engage in behavior that is difficult to understand in terms of social norms.』

Hyunwoo closed the notebook, reviewing once again the passages containing various insights into psychological pathology.

Phrases that remind me of Hyeji every time I read them. The explanations that fit her perfectly allowed us to guess her psychology.

If you think about it, she is like hanging precariously on a cliff. It only depended on Hyunwoo’s whim whether he would grab the hand she was desperately holding and pull it, or just push it away.

Falling off the cliff, or breaking up, would mean death for her…

If you pretend to pull her hand and smile along with her, it’s probably never going to happen in your life for her to shake off your hand first.

Even if he dies or wakes up, he won’t be able to admit that his belief in Hyunwoo is just a delusion, and he won’t have the courage to face the cruel truth.

Abandoned by everything in this world, it was clear that she was not ready to accept the reality of the collapse of the only comfort that supported her. And such preparations were not promised in the future.

Grumbling –

Hyunwoo left the study, dragging the chair he was sitting on behind him.

Hyunwoo returns to the bedroom and quietly looks down at the slave he has taken into his hands.

“Ugh…”

Heji was groaning with his brows furrowed, as if he was having a nightmare.

I carefully stretched out my hand and stroked her a few times, and a soft smile appeared on her lips as she felt Hyunwoo’s touch even in her sleep.

Hyunwoo, showing mercy to the slave who had worked hard today by allowing him to sleep well, picked up the smartphone that had been left by his bedside.

Now that she has been imprisoned, tortured, and brainwashed, what she needs is a ‘tunnel’-like device that will allow her to immerse herself in the current process.

I heard that this ‘tunnel’ is a device that transforms ordinary boys into terrorists who commit suicide bombings.

Boys to be trained as terrorists are divided into small groups that share the same goal, then their contact with the outside world is minimized and they are made to follow only one goal.

In the book, this small world cut off from the outside, a narrow world where only one purpose is visible, is called a tunnel.

People are anxious when they are alone, but they feel safe when they are with others, and when everyone is focused on one goal, they become more motivated to keep up with others.

In this way, it was not that difficult to manipulate a person’s psychology at will if you cleverly mixed the method of using sympathy with group psychology to make them pass through a long tunnel.

And Hyunwoo already had a great device that could be used as a tunnel.

if…

If you give her a sense of belonging by being part of a community and make her eager to become famous in it.

If we make her an object of admiration in a small society of people with biased sexual desires and ideas.

And if she sees this twisted world as her only window to communicate with the world…

It could easily be called a tunnel.

If we start her day by checking community comments as soon as she opens her eyes in the morning and encourage her to become obsessed with the goal of having the number of recommendations that she can compare to others, how far can she be ruined?

Dawn in the middle of the night, when the light on the screen quietly dispels the darkness.

Hyunwoo organized his past photos and videos and wrote a carefully written post.

A tunnel was formed that would confine her to a narrow world, preventing her from thinking or judging for herself.

That night, a truly shocking post was posted on a community.