History Main / ATasteOfTheLash

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* The first ''{{Manga/Berserk}}'' manga story has this happening to Guts at the hands of the village mayor's TortureTechnician. Fortunately, Puck is there to heal him (though Guts isn't too appreciative of the little elf).

* The Digimon Emperor tortured Takeru with his whip in the episode "The Darkness Before Dawn" of ''Anime/DigimonAdventure02''. [[spoiler:Takeru stopped the whipping by ''catching the end of the whip with his bare hand.'']]
** Not to mention all his mooks, slaves, and Wormmon. He was almost never seen without his whip, after all.

* ''Literature/HowNotToSummonADemonLord'': Alicia Crystella has a flashback of being hung from the ceiling naked and tortured with a whip. This didn't make it into the anime.

* ''Anime/LupinIIITheSecretOfTwilightGemini'': [[EffeminateMisogynisticGuy Sadachiyo]] subjects [[MsFanservice Fujiko]] to this type of torture, after she's caught snooping around [[spoiler:[[BigBad Jean Pierre]]]]'s hideout.
* Precia Testarossa establishes herself as a ''supremely'' EvilMatriarch and quite possibly the cruelest villain in the entire ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'' series by doing this to her nine-year-old daughter Fate with the whip form of her Intelligent Device during her introduction scene (Arf's internal monologue implies that this is a regular occurrence). [[spoiler:Sure, she is [[LoveMakesYouEvil insane and broken]] but her FreudianExcuse does not justify her cruelty towards Fate at all.]]

* ''Anime/VariableGeo'': During the second episode, [[{{Ninja}} Chiho]] gets captured by [[NebulousEvilOrganization The Jahana Group]] and is punished for spying on them. When she regains consciousness, she finds her wrists have been bound above her head and that she's been stripped down to her panties. [[TortureTechnician Siritahi]] proceeds to whip her mercilessly, by not allowing her to pass out, then [[{{Brainwash}} gives her an injection to enslave her.]]

* In the Disney version of ''WesternAnimation/{{The Hunchback of Notre Dame|Disney}}'', Judge Frollo is seen supervising a flogging [[VillainyDiscretionShot off screen]]. He tells the flogger to wait between lashes, "otherwise, the old sting will dull him to the new."
* The orc musical number, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdXQJS3Yv0Y Where There's A Whip, There's a Way.]] from the children's animated ''WesternAnimation/TheReturnOfTheKing''.
** Inspired by an offhand remark in [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings the book]].

* In the ''[[Literature/KnightAndRogueSeries Knight And Rogue]]'' series by Creator/HilariBell, after the title characters get press-ganged onto a ship the threat of horrible floggings is always at hand. Michael, the knight, is eventually seriously flogged. The flogging scars, combined with his MarkOfShame, cause most people to assume he's a hardened criminal.

Compare ColdBloodedTorture and DontMakeMeTakeMyBeltOff. Contrast with WhipOfDominance. A form of CorporalPunishment. Not to be confused with an online "[[ForumSpeak flog]]", which is a [[{{Portmanteau}} fake blog]] [[AstroTurf designed for advertising]].

Note that people can and have been flogged ''to death''. Given that the tip of a whip can easily break the sound barrier, a hundred lashes can easily kill, especially with a knout. (In the British Army during the Napoleonic era, the maximum number of lashes a soldier could be sentenced was ''one thousand and two-hundred'', but then British whips were less hardcore than the Continental ones and the sentence would often be reduced anyway.[[note]]The Napoleonic years were toward the end of the years of the "Bloody Code," when Britain's criminal laws frequently mandated punishments ''far'' in excess of proportion (including death for things like stealing anything worth more than twelve pence); as a result, British judges, both civilian and military, were accustomed to handing down extremely severe sentences and then passing along a notice that clemency was to be granted as a matter of course.[[/note]]) Even if you don't die in the process, a good traditional flogging will often result in you dying from your wounds and/or infection shortly after. This is the sort of flogging that was a popular form of punishment in Imperial Russia, in particular, where they used particularly coarse leather for these purposes. Due to this, it was also traditional to pay the executioner to go easy on someone, which still hurt like hell but generally wasn't fatal. It should also be noted that even if a victim survived a severe flogging, they could end up crippled for life, and in an era of single-income-earner families and little in the way of accessible charity on a large scale, this could leave the victim's family destitute.

* Subverted in ''ComicBook/{{Empowered}}''. Emp is defeated by a villain called "The Lash", the sole remaining member of (faux) British trio Rum, Sodomy and The Lash (Rum was in rehab after his fifth drunk driving charge while Sodomy quit after becoming fed up explaining it was ''strictly'' heterosexual sodomy, leaving The Lash to do all three parts). He's about to whip her but realises they're standing in front of a fabric store, which brings up traumatic childhood memories of being bored out of his skull while his mom shopped for fabric, so he calls it a draw and leaves.

* In the Fairy Tail fanfic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11126695/1/I-Will-Always-Follow-You I Will Always Follow You]]'', a possessed [[spoiler: Lucy]] subjects [[spoiler: Natsu]] to this. To his credit he eggs it on saying things that would piss of the [[spoiler: Lucy]] he knows to get reaction out of her to see if she is still [[IKnowYoureInThereSomewhereFight there]]. It works but he gets several lashes for his efforts.

* ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/27853170/chapters/68194306 Pulse and Void]]'', a dark ''Manga/MyHeroAcademia'' fic, Yamada Hizashi aka Present Mic is captured by a villain with an energy siphoning quirk and brutally tortured. His back is so raw and covered in so many gouges by the time he’s rescued that it borders on FlayingAlive-there’s not much skin left, as it was a cat-o-nine-tails like device. (Dark artwork warning)

* In ''Film/TheCorpseVanishes'', Dr. Lorenz use a whip to discipline his hunchbacked assistant Mike when he catches Mike [[ILoveTheDead interfering with the corpses of the brides in the crypt]].

* In ''Film/DjangoUnchained'', both Django and Broomhilda bear the scars of the whipping they received at the hands of the Brittle Brothers for attempting to run away from the Carrucan plantation. When Django tracks them down after being freed by [[{{Deuteragonist}} Dr. King Schultz]], their leader, Big John, is about to whip another slave for breaking eggs. After shooting and killing Big John, Django takes the slave-driver's whip to Roger, the one who whipped Broomhilda, in an awesome act of vengeance before killing him with his own gun.

* ''Film/TheManWhoCameBack'': Even though slavery has officially ended, Billy Duke still carries a whip as he did when he was a slave owner, and uses it to inflict a merciless whipping on Grandpa when the catches the old man and his family attempting to leave the plantation. The scars on Grandpa's back reveal that endured many such whippings when he was a slave.

* In ''Film/StarshipTroopers'', Rico is subject to "administrative punishment" after he bungles a live-fire training exercise, resulting in the death of another cadet. This consists of being strung up and whipped ten times. Dialog early in the movie indicates this is relatively standard fare, with Rico's father indicating he'd rather be lashed in the public square rather than have Rico join the MI.

* In ''Literature/BillyBudd'', Billy, on the day after his impressment, witnesses the flogging of a young novice, and is horrified.

* ''Literature/CarrerasLegions'' is yet another MilitaryScienceFiction story that draws inspiration from ''Literature/StarshipTroopers'', with the titular mercenary outfit punishing middling-serious crimes and derelictions that do not warrant execution with public lashing. Though it also [[{{deconstruction}} deconstructs]] this: a lashing is ''always'' followed by a dishonorable discharge, since this sort of humiliation will effectively destroy the subject's worth as a soldier anyway (whether due to the damage done to him, or to his dignity before the other men).

** In ''His Majesty's Dragon'', Laurence mentions briefly that, when he was still in the navy, one of his past captains took a disliking to him (due to Laurence's good manners) and that he frequently ordered Laurence flogged or beaten. Laurence conjectures that if said captain had not died of dysentery, the abuse might have cost Laurence his life.
** In ''Black Powder War'', Laurence has to order his own aviators flogged a couple times. Both times he hates to do it but is forced to; once because his man hits a superior naval officer and needs to be appropriately punished to keep the sailors from turning against the aviators, and again when two of his men break a pretty important law while in Istanbul and this is the alternative to letting them be executed. Both times he is hugely uncomfortable with the proceedings. In the second incident he insists on keeping the count himself silently, so he can stop it early and pretend that they received more lashes than they actually did.

* ''Series/FatherBrown'': In "The Cat of Mastigatus", Father Brown that a boys school has a secret history of inflicting terrible CorporalPunishment on boys using a modified taws called [[TitleDrop 'the cat of mastigatus']], that leaves permanent scars and permanently crippled the hands of one boy.

** "The Examination for Lieutenant": Sailor Bunting deals badly with the death of his friend, hunger and fear of starvation. He's later caught stealing food. Captain Pellew is disgusted and orders a gauntlet for him. Hornblower feels responsible because he should have dealt with him earlier, so Pellew concludes that Hornblower will make amends by leading Bunting through the gauntlet himself.

** This is also the best form of stress relief in the church, and it's pretty severe to the point you wonder how it doesn't affect their performance. Anyone who undergoes it mentions shedding plenty of blood, which also implies plenty of painful scars. One negative side effect of a session in the Penance Chamber is to suffer a temporary reduction in bleeding resistance.

** It is true that level of minor crimes, for which birching was imposed as punishment, have since shot up on the Island, to pretty much the same level as mainland Britain. Arguably it was a potent deterrent.
* "Running the Gauntlet", where the punished has to walk between two rows of his fellows as they strike him with knotted lengths of rope. To make sure the punished keeps moving, there is a man behind him sticking a sword into his back and, to prevent him from going too quickly, there is another in front of him sticking a sword into his belly.

* Caning continues to be used as a legal form of punishment in UsefulNotes/{{Singapore}}, with judges often handing out a number of strokes ''in addition'' to a man's jail sentence (woman aren't caned, but some juveniles are) should they deem it necessary. Canings are delivered to bare buttocks with a half-inch thick rattan rod that is soaked in water to avoid splinters. Guards who administer canings are specially selected for their physical strength and they are trained strike the recipients' buttocks in a way that will inflict as much pain as possible and substitutes are always on standby because every stroke is legally required to be delivered at full strength. Doctors will monitor the recipients because some will try and fake health problems to avoid canings. A single stroke is more than enough to break the skin and draw blood and permanent scarring is almost inevitable. The pain is so severe that recipients can't walk or sit properly and have to sleep on their stomachs for months. ''And'', if that wasn't enough, many men experience problems with walking and bowel movements for years afterwards, if not permanently.

* There are a small number who are actually seriously contemplating bringing this back into the American justice system as an alternative to imprisonment for lesser, non-felonious, offenses. Of course, the recipient would have to volunteer for it. Their reason? It's considered by some to be less of a Cruel And Unusual Punishment as it takes care of the punishment quickly and promptly and doesn't subject the recipient to the dehumanizing factor of over-crowded prison life (and save precious taxpayer's dollars!) and would allow them to get on with their lives, while still being a strong deterrent. Considering that convicted felons are essentially doomed to be unemployable or make rock-bottom wages for the rest of their lives, and the down turn the economy has been taking recently... It really says something about how brutal America's treatment of ex-cons is that some of them would rather be ''flogged.''

* Robert E. Howard's ''Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian'' story, "The Black Stranger," has a harrowing scene in which Valenso, a vicious pirate, has his niece Belesa's protegee, a young girl by the name of Tina, subjected to this because he thinks she was lying about the coming of the title Black Man.

* In the ''Series/BabylonFive'' episode "[[Recap/BabylonFiveS04E03TheSummoning The Summoning]]", Centauri Emperor [[TheCaligula Cartagia]] orders that G'Kar to be whipped until he dies or screams, whichever comes first. For no reason beyond the fact that he wants to hear the Narn scream. He specifically orders that the "[[TortureTechnician pain technicians]]" use a special high-tech whip that gradually increases the level of pain until dealing a fatal blow at lash number 40. G'Kar stubbornly refuses to scream until the 39th lash, even then only doing it to keep Cartagia from ruining his and Londo's plan to assassinate him and end the occupation of the Narn homeworld.

* In Creator/PatriciaBriggs' ''Literature/DragonBones'' Oreg has a flashback to being whipped after laying a curse on one of his old masters. His powerful magic makes the damage real, at least until he can get enough of a grip to heal himself again.

* ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/27853170/chapters/68194306 Pulse and Void]]'', Yamada Hizashi aka Present Mic is captured by a villain with an energy siphoning quirk and brutally tortured. His back is so raw and covered in so many gouges by the time he’s rescued that it borders on FlayingAlive-there’s not much skin left, as it was a cat-o-nine-tails like device. (Dark artwork warning)

* David Feintuch's "Hope" series about the damned Captain Nicholas Seafort has constant floggings of the adolescent cadets and midshipmen - pretty expected since though it is a story about interstellar space vessels, it is based on "Hornblower" and other Napoleonic sea tales.

* ''film/TheManhunt'': After being caught on Robeson's ranch following his first escape, Forrest has the stranger strung up in the barn and administers a flogging to him before handing him over to the sheriff.

* In''Film/TheManWhoKilledDonQuixote'', Toby discovers Javier/Quixote flagellating himself with thorned branches, leaving deep cuts on his back.

Compare DontMakeMeTakeMyBeltOff. A form of CorporalPunishment. Not to be confused with an online "[[ForumSpeak flog]]", which is a [[{{Portmanteau}} fake blog]] [[AstroTurf designed for advertising]].

* [[ImpliedTrope Implied]] in ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' with [[MeanBoss Holly Blue Agate]] who wields an electrified whip and according to [[BigBad Yellow Diamond's]] VillainSong, an agates role in the [[FantasticCasteSystem gem hierarchy]] is to [[BadBoss terrify lower class gems into submission]].

Flagellation (more commonly called "flogging") is a method of punishment in which a person is beaten or whipped with a rod, a switch, or (most especially) a whip or a cat-o-nine-tails. Flogging was commonly used in various navies around the world during the time of WoodenShipsAndIronMen, especially as the sailors of the time were known to have a disregard for pain. A knotted piece of rope (called a "starter") was used to give "encouragement" to a lazy sailor, while the cat-o-nine-tails was used for harsher, more formal punishments. It was also commonly used by slave owners as a method of disciplining their slaves. Typically during a flogging, the prisoner is stripped naked (or at least stripped to the waist) and then hung upright or chained upright to a pillar or a post (or a pair of posts) in order to stretch them out. Standard practice was to whip the prisoner's back, as there is a greater chance of inflicting a fatal wound while whipping the chest. Depending on the region, more than one person might carry out the punishment.

* Agonizers and the Agony Booth seem to have taken the physical place of the lash in ''Franchise/StarTrek'''s MirrorUniverse, though their purpose remains in place. Imperial Captain Forrest even remarks that while he can understand the Booth's usefulness, there's still something to be said for [[GoodOldWays a good old-fashioned flogging]].
** Kirk and Spock get flogged for real in the [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Original Series]] episode "Patterns of Force". This makes their subsequent escape attempt (which involves Spock standing on Kirk's back) all the more excruciating for the captain.

** In "The Archeologist in the Cocoon," the VictimOfTheWeek has scars to his skeleton indicating he was whipped at some point. His wife confirms that [[OverprotectiveDad her father did it to punish him for their relationship]].

* ''LightNovel/HowNotToSummonADemonLord'': Alicia Crystella has a flashback of being hung from the ceiling naked and tortured with a whip. This didn't make it into the anime.