Written by Mr. Mouseburger 29th Apr 2006
Kindly submitted by Pyro
When Princess Buttercup discovers Prince Humperdink lied about sending for Westley, she immediately confronts him, insisting that her love will still come for her as he vowed long ago (she doesn't know the Prince already has Westley held in a torture chamber).
"You're a silly girl." The prince says, casually dismissing this, but the Princess annoys him by prattling on about a bond she and Westley share that the Prince could never destroy, and to put icing on the cake, she (very accurately) calls him the "slimiest weakling ever to crawl the earth".
Not one to take insults well, the Humperdink becomes infuriated, locking Buttercup in her room and rushing off to the Pit of Despair, where Count Rugen is taking a short break from torturing Westley. The Prince has other ideas, however...
Standing over Westley, the Prince speaks. "So you truly love each other, and think it might end truly happily? Well not ONE couple in a century even has that chance, no matter what the storybooks say!" He then glares into Westley's eyes as he promises "So I think no man in a century shall suffer as greatly as you will!"
With this rather dubious non sequitur, Prince Humperdink storms over to the lever that activates Count Rugen's torture machine and pushes it all the way to 50 - the highest setting. The scale of the machine has been previously shown to relate to years of life, forcibly extracted from the unfortunate victim (Rugen has previously been tormenting Westley slowly, in the interests of science, asking him how one year of life feels when it is lost).
"Not to 50!" The Count shouts seconds too late, as he senses the premature loss of his test subject. This seems a valid fear as Westley immediately screams out a horrific cry of pure, undiluted anguish that seems to scare even the Count. The Prince, Count Rugen, and his albino servant watch quietly as Westley convulses about on the table, until finally all his life force is depleted.
This would not be the end of Westley, however, if Inigo, Fezzik (with a little help from Miracle Max) have anything to say about it...
"Old Age"
??? Westley does not die of old age
Six-fingers said he would take so-and-so years off his life.
The torture machine removes "years of life" from the victims. So, if you go by this theory, Westley did die of old age... in a somewhat forced manner!
However, that may be getting a little too technical.
This is definitely "old age" - whether the final death was due to aging or pain doesn't matter, the machine does cause aging and Westley does experience that effect.
The actual line isn't really a non sequitur:
"You truly love each other, and so you might have been truly happy. Not one couple in a century has that chance, no matter what the storybooks say. And so I think no man in a century will suffer as greatly as you will."
Dubious. As Miracle Max says: "Look who knows so much. Well, it just so happens that your friend here is only mostly dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead."
I'm not so sure about this one.
However, Miracle Max is quite evidently a few clowns short of a circus, so his opinion shouldn't be taken too seriously