(no subject)
I think that if you have any human tendencies at all, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to torture and kill someone you are familiar with in any capacity. My thinking is that as soon as you recognize a person as someone you've seen before, you relate to that person on a basic, human level. Once that happens, if you peel that person's skin off a square inch at a time, it's easy to imagine having YOUR skin peeled off. That would make it hard to do it to someone else.