I'd read, in school history classes, about boiling oil being used as punishment, and I knew people were burned alive (at stakes, of course), but but when you're a kid, these are grotesque fascinations, not actual things that happened to actual people. Then, a few years ago, while watching The Tudors, I thought, "How in the--What could compel people to inflict such horrifying pain on other people?" And now, reading this, I think it again. People are ... interesting(?).