Talk:Room 101

Orwell's use of "101"
I don't think that the use of the term "101" for a basic introduction to a topic has ANYTHING to do with Orwell's Room 101. I may be wrong, which is why I haven't changed the entry - but I have never understood the two to be at all related. 101 simply comes from conventional college course numbering, where the first topic of the first subject is 1.01. It could be that Orwell was making use of this when he chose 101 as the number of the room in which Winston Smith is tortured, but it seems a bit tenuous. Certainly the use of 101 for courses predates Orwell's use, not the other way around. Can anyone shed any light on this? GRAHAMUK 11:09 4 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * Room 101 is supposedly named after a conference room at BBC Broadcasting House where Orwell used to sit through tedious meetings. -- The Anome

There is also a Room 101 in A Beautiful Mind (film) 91.50.192.54 (talk) 20:16, 18 June 2008 (UTC)

ANSWER: The number 101 in the name "room 101" is used in the book 1984 by George Orwell simply because the dial on the pain machine described in Part 3 of Chapter 3 only goes up to 100. "Room 101" is pain that cannot be tolerated. 101 being the numerical value above 100. Credit to Eatbokbok. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.253.168.80 (talk) 03:20, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Within the BBC the consensus was that it was Room 101 at 200 Oxford Street, a BBC building where Orwell worked during the war. However, there's a BBC memo reproduced in George Orwell: A Life in Letters by George Orwell and Peter Davison (p 197) which describes a meeting of a committee that Orwell attended as being in Room 101 at 55 Portland Place. The meeting later moved to 200 Oxford Street where it took place in Room 314. The book suggests that 101 would have been on the ground floor but I suspect it was on the first floor (in the UK that means one floor up) as ground floor rooms in the BBC were usually designated with a G, eg G10. Delverie (talk) 16:51, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Page Order
I have reverted the edits by Samuel J. Howard whereby the page was re-ordered to move the spoiler section to the bottom. The change placed the least relevant information at the top, and the only real information (what is in Room 101) at the bottom and caused the article to make little sense. --HappyDog 19:40, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

I disagree. At the top was a meta notice about a different topic. Then was information about Room 101 as a general term and then it's use in 1981. --Samuel J. Howard 19:42, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

Ermm... you mean 1984? :)

The use as a 'general term' is derived from the book, so it makes no sense to explain that without having first explained where it comes from. You wouldn't start an article on Socrates with the paragraph 'Socrates appeared as a character in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure', would you? --HappyDog 20:04, 2 May 2004 (UTC)

About the fate of Julia
The article says it´s not clear in the book whether Julia had her face gnawed on by rats or not. Is this really true? Because I remember reading they meet after the tortures, their relationship all shaken up, and all. And that would be strange if Julia had been killed by ferocious rats. More than that, she says something like "they torture you with things you can´t resist", which never suggests she was tortured with the same thing that Winston had been. Did I get it all wrong? --Alvim.


 * That sentence could certainly be cleaned up a bit. I'd say it is reasonable to suppose she was tortured with her own worst fear, as the article states. &there4; here&hellip;&spades; 23:25, 21 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I've gone ahead and changed it. It's certainly implied that Julia was sent to Room 101, and her worst nightmare definitely wasn't rats &mdash; she was quite calm when she and Winston discovered one in their room above the bookshop, while Winston nearly went into hysterics. Deadlock 15:59, 5 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Now it says it was "never suggested" that she was tortured with rats. That's not true. Winston screams, "Do it to Julia!" and Julia has conspicuous scars where they would be if it had been done to her and it is "never suggested" that it was rats? Of course it's suggested by the text, whether or not Orwell meant it. It's not unreasonable either: if they wanted to destroy Julia's love for Winston likewise as they did for Winston, the Ministry of Love could've unleashed the rats on her explaining, "This is what your lover who promised to never betray you pleaded desperately for us to do." —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.192.252.76 (talk) 08:55, 27 March 2007 (UTC).


 * That makes no sense- the Party doesn't need Winston's approval to sick rats on Julia, they would have done it anyway. Regardless, Winston had already been told Julia betrayed him. But the Party's lies don't matter. I was just voicing my opinion on something- I think it likely that Julia had a frontal lobotomy as her worst fear, because of two things- the scar on her forehead, and Orwell's choice of words while they were speaking- blandly, baldly (she hates him, but that's not so much of an emotion, more of an instinct). ... -Panther (talk) 03:37, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Comments on the article from 82.45.204.142
I am interested in the way a theoretical idea in a novel gets translated into a prime time TV program. The idea of ‘room 101’ is riveting. It was invented in George Orwell’s book, 1984. It was apparently named after a conference room at the BBC where George Orwell had to sit through tedious meetings.

In recent years it has featured in a BBC2 series, ‘Room 101’ where celebrities throw away their least favourite things. A telling quote from the book: ‘“You asked me once,” said O’Brien, “What was in Room 101. I told you that you knew the answer already. Everyone knows it. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world… "The worst thing in the world varies from individual to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or by impalement or fifty other deaths. There are cases where it is some quite trivial thing, not even fatal.” ’ - George Orwell, 1984 I would argue that Room 101 could never exist in reality. I prove my point by starting with Orwell’s argument: ‘Room 101’ is the worst thing in the world’. In our world, when a person sleeps, they can imagine things that are not physically possible. So, by Orwell’s definition, the worst thing in the world could be something that someone would imagine in nightmares (e.g. a monster). This itself is a paradox because someone could imagine a monster killing them, which is impossible physically in the real world. Therefore Orwell’s room 101 can never exist in reality while its definition is ‘Room 101 is the worst thing in the world’. Therefore my definition of Room 101 is: ‘Room 101 is the worst thing imaginable.’


 * The problem for your argument is for some people the worst thing in the world can be concrete/manifest in the waking/conscious/physical world. I.e. the worst thing in the world for some people may not be in a dream, but may be "real".
 * In any case, it seems reasonable to assume that Orwell meant the worst thing possible in the world as it is obvious that the worst thing in the world has to be possible.
 * Furthermore, what is to say that people's minds might not be contorllable in the world of 1984, such that they can experience their worse dream in R101?

Pronunciation

 * How is the "101" in "Room 101" pronounced? Is it "one-oh-one" or "one hundred and one?" 67.171.163.212 07:20, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
 * From any mention of it I have heard, it has always been one-oh-one.--Darth Fanboy 15:47, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Speculation

 * and the original intent of threatening Winston with the rats probably was not actually to go through with the act, but to force him into betraying the only person he loved and therefore break his spirit

This can go, IMO. It seems to be thinking that the miniluv officers were real, in order for them to have some sort of "intent". Of course, they were merely a made-uup story and not real at all. In any case, I'll bet that they were perfectly ready to go through with it. Paul Murray 03:29, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

Cell Fourteen
I don't think that Orwell had any involvement with MI5 but one cell at Camp 020, where MI5 interrogated enemy spies, had a similar reputation to Room 101 even though it was a perfectly ordinary cell. "Often used as a last resort, the interrogator would say "you will now be taken to Cell Fourteen", at which point the prisoner would, more often than not, cave in". --jmb 11:32, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Origins of Room 101
I believe that room 101 was the room at the BBC where Orwell/Blair produced propaganda broadcasts for India/Burma during the second world war. I don't recall where I read this, but I suspect it was in a biography of Orwell which I no longer own. Can anyone else confirm this so it can be added to the page? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.90.220.163 (talk • contribs) 05:26, December 24, 2007

source for Mielke being an Orwell fan
[Copied from User talk:Jtir and User talk:Nanobot recurve to maintain context.] --Jtir (talk) 11:10, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Hiya Jtir! I've spotted the fact tag you left on the statement about Erich Mielke. I've just added a reference to, which includes the text below :

'The people of the GDR lived through their own private Nineteen Eighty-Four every single day. Funder describes Orwell's book as "like a manual for the GDR, right down to the most incredible detail". The party, if not the proles, knew that very well. She remembers that the much-dreaded Stasi chief Erich Mielke even managed to renumber the offices in the secret-service headquarters. "His office was on the second floor, so all the office numbers started with '2'. Orwell was banned in the GDR, but he would have had access to it. Because he so wanted the room number to be 101, he had the entire first floor renamed the mezzanine, and so his office was Room 101."'

Please contact me if you feel this needs further discussion, ok? :) Nanobot recurve (talk) 09:37, 2 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks! That's perfect (and bizarre, I might add). The para may need some minor copyediting to conform to the source (e.g. he didn't move his office, but had the floors renumbered). I'll do that. Thanks for your help with sourcing articles. --Jtir (talk) 10:35, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Hi, again. After looking closer, ISTM that the source supports only the first sentence, and not the second. I did a search of Stasiland (ISBN 1862075808) at amazon.com and found Orwell mentioned, but not as a subject of Mielke's admiration. --Jtir (talk) 12:39, 2 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I've had another little look at google, all the claims I can find of Erich Mielke being an Orwell fan (so far, I've yet to examine all of the german language text via google translate yet) seem based on this blog post, interpreting the quote from stasiland. I feel you'd have some issues with its usefulness as a font of academic knowledge. I'll see if I can find anything else over the next few days, but I suspect this is about as far as websearching is going to get on this subject. Oh well, at least there's a little new supporting material there, yes? Nanobot recurve (talk) 16:51, 2 February 2008 (UTC)
 * We can probably find a more authoritative source than the blog post, since there are several bios of Mielke (all of which are in German). This may require some library research. --Jtir (talk) 11:28, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Removed as unsourced since February 2008: "Mielke was a great admirer of Orwell's novel." --Jtir (talk) 20:06, 24 August 2008 (UTC)

Cultural impact
The page list several references to popular culture where a room 101 is found. But I feel that these are relevant only if they can be shown in some way to have been based on 1984. For example it is entirely possible that Bill's apartment from Kill Bill 2 happened to be 101 and has nothing to do with Orwell and 1984. Some citation is needed to show that it indeed is a reference or else it should not be on this page. Catradar (talk) 01:20, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Also having completed Half Life 2, several times, I found no Room 101, and on a web search, the only refrence is this page, and a copy on wikimoble. Its essentially unsorced. --99.185.0.29 (talk) 11:43, 25 October 2008 (UTC)Superscript text


 * Right, I'll delete this as well. I didn't remember a specific Room 101 reference either (although I can see the parallel that's being drawn).  --P LUMBAGO  10:33, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

"In Fallout 3, the starting point is called Vault 101. Vault 101 is symbolic of the bleak future '1984' presents." Another explanation could be that Vault 101 is where the player goes trough the tutorial. In many schools and colleges, 101 is appended to the name of a subject to mean its and introductory course: for example, Astronomy 101. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.139.171.53 (talk) 20:22, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

It's an awful section. I've rearranged it so that it places emphasis on the real world impact of the idea and use in fictional works second. Additionally, I'm going to keep deleting things if they're simply named Room 101. Citations should show an intentional reference to 1984. Tegrenath (talk) 17:33, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Removed unreferenced edit
Have removed the following - and it stays out until suitably referenced - and even then am not sure it belongs here:

Conservative columnist Mark Steyn compares the world's view of America to Room 101:

Fanatical Muslims despise America because it's all lapdancing and gay porn; the secular Europeans despise America because it's all born-again Christians hung up on abortion; the anti-Semites despise America because it's controlled by Jews. Too Jewish, too Christian, too Godless, America is also too isolationist, except when it's too imperialist. Too Christian, too Godless, too isolationist, too imperialist, too seductive, too cretinous, America is George Orwell's Room 101: whatever your bugbear, you will find it therein - for the Continentals, excessive religiosity; for the Muslims, excessive decadence; for Harold Pinter, excessively bleeding rectums. --Technopat (talk) 16:56, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Neo's room
Shouldn't this page include a disambiguation link that lists Neo's Room 101 from The Matrix? ~ RayLast  « Talk! » 03:19, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Neo and where this fits in with 1984/reality
Room 101 is in the mind. It is how you torture yourself with the pre-conceived ideas that what you want is all that counts. As I am British, male and middle aged, I recognise that the psychology of the next man say from South America, will have been created differently by his state, and so his Nationalism, biases and needs are different to mine because his indoctrination is different. Neo wakes up from the fake world (is pulled out by Morpheus (reason)) and fights Agent Smith (his ego). He wins in the end and threatens to bring down the card-house. Take this principle and apply it to yourself. You will see it is true.81.155.214.186 (talk) 17:06, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier
The comic in question actually identifies Room 101 as being in MI5. Here's a direct quote: "The records of these various teams are rumoured to be gathered in a single file, the legendary BLACK DOSSIER, kept in MI5's impregnable H.Q. at Vauxhall Cross". The comic later depicts the titular Black Dossier being removed from room 101 of said building. While the identification of the building at Vauxhall Cross being MI5 is of course 'incorrect', so much as a work of fiction can be incorrect, that is never-the-less how it is identified, and the entry here should reflect that. 81.153.168.46 (talk) 08:09, 12 May 2013 (UTC)