History Main / SymbolicMutilation

* SymbolicMutilation/{{Saw}}

!!Examples:

* The ''Franchise/{{Saw}}'' franchise is a huge fan of this:
** The razor wire maze forces a man who cut himself to crawl carefully around a maze of razor wire.
** Mark Wilson, who called in sick to work even though he wasn't, had to find numbers with a candle to unlock a safe while he's covered in flammable jelly. He burns to death, therefore he got [[JustForPun fired]].
** Michael Marks, the victim of the [[IronMaiden venus flytrap]], was a police informant to a corrupt cop, who had to cut out one of his eyes to reach the key.
** Addison was originally going to have a different trap than the razor box which never made it into the movie. Her wrists were going to be trapped and she had to press her face onto a hot iron, sacrificing her looks (as a prostitute, that's one of her key features) to save her life.
** Xavier Chavez, a drug dealer, was told to crawl through a giant pit of used needles to get the key to the antidote that will save his life. He chooses Amanda Young instead, who also happened to be an ex-heroin addict.
** Troy, the victim of the classroom trap, repeatedly returned to prison despite a good privileged life. Many chains pierce his body, which he needs to pull out in order to escape.
** Ivan, a serial rapist, is told he needs to [[EyeScream blind both of his eyes]], which have "led him blindly astray" in order to escape the trap that will pull his body apart, which caused others endless suffering.
** The 10 pints of sacrifice trap revealed to the two remaining survivors of the five-person game that if they had only worked together, they each could have given two pints of blood each instead of five each.
** The pound of flesh trap puts two corrupt moneylenders at odds with each other, both giving all they had to give to survive.
** The shotgun carousel forces William Easton to choose [[SadisticChoice two people out of six]] from his team of yuppies in their corrupt medical insurance company. This symbolizes that the company only chooses 1/3 of their insurance cases, and Easton needs to give himself stigmata to save the two people he deems being hurt for.
** Evan, his girlfriend, and two of his buddies found themselves in a giant trap for [[DeathByRacism their racism]]. His mutilation? Peeling the skin off his back to reach the lever to save their lives.
** Bobby Dagen was put into a trap for his lies about being a Jigsaw victim. His final test is to perform the test he completely made up and made a book about, piercing his pecs and hosting himself up to connect wires. It doesn't work and his pecs are completely torn out.

[[folder:Film]]

* ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddysSecurityBreach'': The three hostile animations are damaged by Gregory in this way.

[[folder:Real Life]]
* In Ancient civilizations they used these punishments. You steal from or hit your father and get your hand chopped off, kiss a married woman and you lose your lips. Basically the Eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth punishment.
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** One could say that the constant loss of hands and limbs represents the loss of control in a situation. From Anakin's hand being cut off by Count Dooku to Luke losing his hand to Vader, it shows the moment when the person who thought they were strong enough to face anything sees that they are really quite powerless.

-->[[spoiler:'''Sasuke''']]: It's symbolic. The hand I used when I tried to kill you is gone. Discarding it signifies my resolve to turn aside from the dark path I walked in my younger years. It's a sign of my penitence, and of my ultimate acceptance of your philosophy.
-->''{{beat}}''
-->'''Naruto''': You know... [[FridgeLogic I'm pretty sure]] you've tried to kill me plenty of times with your ''right hand'', too.

* Throughout ''Fanfic/InfinityTrainBlossomingTrial'', Goh has a really hard time understand or, ''facing'', that he played a big part in why Chloe has left onto the Infinity Train, refusing to admit that he's at fault or face a lot of issues. One nightmare epiphany later, with one scene having a construct of Ash stabbed to death by Parker and the blood splattered over his face, he develops a very nasty habit of clawing at his face to symbolize not only how he realized this but now he's just lost his sanity from this revelation.

** Amusingly, in the manga, the BigBad has a rant about how everyone listed above brought it on themselves for their hubris in attempting human transmutation, and [[SkewedPriorities Ed yells at him]] because [[spoiler:Mustang]] ''didn't even try it'' and only ended up in that situation because the bad guys basically threw him bodily through the GateOfTruth. [[spoiler: Mustang]] did get it rather light from Truth, as shown in the Blind Alchemist OVA, as he outright lost his eyes when he performed human transmutation, rather than just get ProphetEyes.

** The razor wire maze forces a man who cut himself to crawl carefully around a maze of razor wire

** Michael Marks, the victim of the [[IronMaiden venus flytrap]], was a police informant to a corrupt cop, who had to cut out one of his eyes to reach the key

** Bobby Dagan was put into a trap for his lies about being a Jigsaw victim. His final test is to perform the test he completely made up and made a book about, piercing his pecs and hosting himself up to connect wires. It doesn't work and his pecs are completely torn out.

* The ''Franchise/Saw'' franchise is a huge fan of this:

* The ''Saw'' franchise is a huge fan of this:

**

* Eyes are of enormous symbolic significance in ''{{WebAnimation/RWBY}}'', and [[EyeScream eye injuries]] are linked to a loss of power or otherwise being taken down a peg.
** Ostensibly to "prove" herself before she can attend [[AcademyOfAdventure Beacon Academy]], Weiss is forced by her abusive father to fight a massive animated knight. In defeating it, she takes a cut over her eye. The test fails to bring her down, and appropriately, her eye stays intact, leaving her with only a [[GoodScarsEvilScars light scar]].
** The left side of [[TheHeavy Cinder Fall's]] face is left horribly scarred by [[spoiler:the power of Ruby's [[MagicalEye silver eyes]]]], serving as a permanent reminder of how her moment of triumph was ruined.
** [[CoolOldLady Maria Calavera]] was forced to retire as a Huntress when her eyes got slashed out. This carries an extra sting, as [[spoiler:her silver eyes were the source of her Grimm-countering powers.]]
** [[spoiler:Adam Taurus]] was branded over his left eye, maiming and presumably blinding it. The brand [[spoiler:bears the logo of the [[MegaCorp Schnee Dust Company]], symbolizing how Adam, a [[LittleBitBeastly Faunus]], was [[FantasticRacism dehumanized like livestock]].]]
** In Volume 7, Ironwood expresses his belief that Salem's greatest advantage is her inhumanity. During his fight against Watts, Ironwood's remaining organic arm ends up trapped in a HardLight barrier. He tears his arm out, flaying the skin and rendering it useless, symbolizing both his belief that humanity is holding him back as well as his self-destructive determination. Volume 8 shows that he's replaced the arm with a robot prosthetic, combining this trope with CyberneticsEatYourSoul.

* In ''Manga/VigilanteMyHeroAcademiaIllegals'', Stendhal gets confronted by Koichi, who claimed to be the kind of guy who sticks his nose where it doesn't belong. After Stendhal gets beaten by Knuckleduster, Stendhal ends up taking those words to heart and [[spoiler:lops off his own nose so he won't have anything to stick where it doesn't belong, cementing his transformation into Stain.]]

** Big Boss's trademark is an EyepatchOfPower, which we see him receive in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3'' (when he attacks Ocelot to [[AlwaysSaveTheGirl keep him from assassinating Tatyana]] and ends up getting his right eye blinded by muzzle flare in a freak accident). His loss of the eye doesn't happen at exactly the same time as the large traumatic event that sculpts his character (the death of The Boss), but does serve to distinguish the difference from a rather [[{{Adorkable}} innocent]] and ordinary soldier to a single-minded, ambitious and [[BrokenAce traumatised]] one. This injury is then repeated with over the course of the series symbolising the difference in each character's outlook compared to Big Boss:

** [[CoolOldLady Maria Calavera]] was forced to retire as a Huntress when her eyes got slashed out. This carries an extra sting, as [[spoiler:her silver eyes]] were the source of her Grimm-countering powers.]]

[[folder:Anime or Manga]]

[[folder:Religion and Mythology]]