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I think in my book, a 1% chance of being tortured using the most advanced methods a postclassical civilization can devise is intolerably high.
And there are a lot of slave or indentured servant jobs that were also pretty tortuous if only because they were indefinite in length. I wouldn't necessarily be unhappy with being forced to compete in Gladiatorial games, though.
To say nothing of being a Castrato or Eunuch. Not torture per se, but... ugh.
Although another 'fun' debate is how medieval torture compares to stuff the Drug Cartels do in modern day.
Anyway, I just want to stay far away from any battlefield where inflicting excess suffering on enemies is not tabooed harshly.
Castration was done to prepubescent boys(that is, not soldiers).
You're not making this time period sound more enticing.
Good thing we've moved past that sort or practice, eh.
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Very understandable position! I would say even 1% is a significant overstatement of how likely a captured medieval footsoldier was to be tortured, but we'll never know for sure, and captivity would have been unpleasant enough to count as "cruel or unusual" today, besides a nontrivial chance of losing your head and a far higher chance of dying of disease.
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