[Wids]

Flaying is another possibility, as are isolation, sensory deprivation and sleep deprivation. I'm not sure if any one of those would be enough to substantiate a small essay, but I suppose there could always be a catch-all "Miscellany" book at the end of the series. ;)

Flaying does remind me of how some of these books could overlap in parts. One old way to remove the skin rather painfully (while also adding the convenient side effect of cauterization to slow the victim's bleeding and eventual death) is to use red-hot knives or pincers; would this also fall under the "Burning and Branding" category? And the Foot Tortures include bastinado (whipping, thrashing or clubbing the soles of the feet), roasting (sometimes in the Torture Chair or so-called Spanish Chair) and forcing a barefoot victim to stand on or walk across hot coals or hot iron plates; would these techniques also fall under either "Striking, Caning and Flagellation" or "Burning and Branding" as well?

The voting's coming along nicely, I see. We already have one vote for tried-and-true whipping and beating (easy to set up and elegant in its simplicity), one for the Rack (arguably the king of the medieval torture chamber) and one for the water tortures (which include the dripping torture and the so-called Chinese water torture, which can also couple well with isolation and sensory deprivation; strap the victim down from head to toe in a dark and silent room, hang a big bucket of water with a tiny hole in the bottom over his face and see how long it takes him to go nuts). So there are three people who could stand to enlighten us with the reasoning behind their choices. Lend me your words, peeps. :)