History Monster / LiveActionTv

* Marlo Stanfield definitely qualifies. He has no conscience, no sense of social responsibility, and no respect for human life; he doesn't even have a sense of humor. Absolutely the only thing that matters to him is that his name is respected and feared on the streets, and he will kill anyone who interferes with that or his drug business in any way. All the other dealers have ''something'' else that matters to them, be it family, friends, [[PetTheDog pets]], even intellectual pursuits (in the case of Stringer). Marlo has ''nothing''.

* Knox from ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' was getting there. Victimized an entire bank full of people just so he can get revenge on ''one'' person, kills a small child in an episode that takes place in the future and feels no remorse, and tries to force Hiro into killing his best friend Ando simply because Ando has no powers and is presumably useless. He just gets worse as time goes on, aiding Arthur Petrelli in his nonsensical murder of Adam Monroe and later killing Scott, a promising new character played by [[AscendedExtra Chad Faust]].
*** No surprise here, knowing that actor Jamie Hector played the equally ruthless and suave Marlo Stanfield on ''TheWire''.
*** Marlo definitely qualifies. He has no conscience, no sense of social responsibility, and no respect for human life; he doesn't even have a sense of humor. Absolutely the only thing that matters to him is that his name is respected and feared on the streets, and he will kill anyone who interferes with that or his drug business in any way. All the other dealers have ''something'' else that matters to them, be it family, friends, [[PetTheDog pets]], even intellectual pursuits (in the case of Stringer). Marlo has ''nothing''.

*** It is worth noting that Dexter himself could pretty much count for this. He's a sociopath who kills people. If his adopted father hadn't pointed him in the direction of criminals, then he would have started on everyone else. There is lee-way for this classification in light of the fact that he ''does'' appear to have feelings. Psychopaths with a biological deficiency to feel human emotion, empathy or remorse and are therefore CompleteMonsters. Always. Sociopaths are shaped into psychopathic states by traumatic events or continued environmental stimuli. If Dexter is the former he will never reform, if his psychopathic tendencies are really due to what happened when he was 2 years old, then he might and he is redeemable.

*** The Reaper...Oh god,...The Reaper. That man is nightmare fuel personified. His bloodied evil grin at the end of "Omnivore" will haunt you in your sleep.

*** The Reaper...Just...The Reaper. That man is nightmare fuel personified. His bloodied evil grin at the end of "Omnivore" will haunt you in your sleep.

* In BabylonFive we have Lord Refa who started off as an SmugSnake who wanted to 'return the Centauri to Glory', but he's the one who started Londo off on his StartOfDarkness, making him ask Morden, the Shadows' servant for favors. He's the one who began the entire Narn/Centauri War and authorized ''illegal weapons'', the Mass-Drivers used against the Narn Homeworld killing hundreds of millions. And of course, he was a complete dupe for the Shadows, sending Centauri forces out to conquer far and wide,leaving the empire unprotected. [[spoiler: Eventually killed off, when Londo, who had grown to despise Refa, was under threat of political annihilation, and seeking revenge against Refa for his (supposed) murder of Londo's lover, enacted a XanatosGambit that saw Refa torn apart by a mob of vengeful Narns. To a [[LyricalDissonance cheery, upbeat Gospel song]]]]

**Then again, Lyndisty was raised this way by her father, Lord Drusella.

* In BabylonFive we have Lord Refa who started off as an SmugSnake who wanted to 'return the Centauri to Glory', but he's the one who started Londo off on his StartOfDarkness, making him ask Morden, the Shadows' servant for favors. He's the one who began the entire Narn/Centauri War and authorized ''illegal weapons'', the Mass-Drivers used against the Narn Homeworld killing hundreds of millions. When Londo learns of Lord Refa's Death Camps, he makes a long awaited HeelFaceTurn and sides with G'Kar of the Narn who had became a [[TheMessiah Messiah]] to his people, his former worst enemy.

** For the humour value YourMileageMayVary.
*** DeadBabyComedy.

**** Ladies and Gentlemen, [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel/DoctorWho the Weeping Angels]] have recently gained CompleteMonster status. They've started [[spoiler: breaking necks when they could "just" send you far enough into the past as to have a lot of diffculty causing them any trouble (in fact that's dinner time to them). Steal the voices of the troops they've killed and really enjoy using them to tell the Doctor how they failed the young man who died in pain. Relish the fact Amy is quickly being killed by an Angel in her head. And have the arrogance to tell the Doctor to throw himself into the crack in time in their place AFTER ALL OF THAT. And most insultingly of all, [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking "[they] have no need of comfy chairs."]]]]
* The 456 from ''{{Torchwood}}: Children of Earth'', while being StarfishAliens, are very definitely examples of this trope. After taking control of all the world's children in order to communicate, it turns out that they are [[spoiler:intergalactic drug dealers who use human children in some nasty symbiotic way in order to get high and are bargaining to take 10% of the world's children to use as drugs or else they KillAllHumans. This is a protection racket, and they would almost certainly have been back for more later. One child is seen hooked up to one of them and it's shown that he's been a human reefer for over 30 years]]. It's really twisted and nasty, although it could be argued that a few of the human characters should qualify as well.

* Brother Cavil in the recent ''BattlestarGalactica''. Made worse by the fact that he was introduced as an AffablyEvil, DeadpanSnarker type. That was before we find out that he's the mastermind behind the human genocide, as well as a majority of the other bad things on the show. All because he was unhappy with the body he was made in. We later find out that [[spoiler:Cavil murders a young orphan boy just because they were becoming friends]]

* [[strike:A few]] several villains in ''TheShield'', especially the minor ones who only last one or two episodes. The doctor who bought a seven-year old girl, kept her in a cage, and repeatedly raped her definitely fits this trope, as does the old sadist who sexually abused his foster daughters and force-fed Drano to the youngest one. But several villains are so despicable that they earn a "special" place in the viewers' hearts:

* In ''{{Deadwood}}'', Francis Wolcott and George Hearst were the {{Complete Monster}}s who squared off with MagnificentBastard Al Swearengen. Wolcott was a sexual sadist who enjoyed murdering prostitutes and Hearst, well, let's just say his lack of ethics and decency made Swearengen look like a moral paragon. [[spoiler:The series ends with Hearst winning the conflict big time, riding out of town with everything he wanted and with Swearengen forced to go beyond the MoralEventHorizon by killing an innocent prostitute to save Trixie from Hearst's retribution. I wanted to set things on fire after that bit. Something of a ForegoneConclusion, since the character is based on a successful businessman and US Senator from US history.]]

*** Even the Master in MagnificentBastard mode is still a Complete Monster. In ''Logopolis'', the Master set in motion a series of events that [[spoiler:''forced the whole universe'' into entropic heat-death, instantly wiping out several dozen galaxies ''on-screen'' at one juncture of the story]]. And this was an ''accident'' on his part - he subsequently [[spoiler:joined forces with the Doctor in order to arrest the entropy wave]]. He succeeded, but then completely shot down any redemptive points from his efforts by immediately hijacking the technology [[spoiler:stabilizing the entropy wave, and broadcasts a message to the surviving species ordering them to submit to him, threatening to destroy the remaining bits of the universe if they don't]]. The Doctor stops the Master, [[spoiler:though at the cost of a regeneration. And I won't even begin to go into all the murder, sabotage, subterfuge, coercion, body-puppetry and mental torture he commits ''before he even causes the accident'']]. The Master, for his part, never expresses any remorse for this incident, and is even clearly enjoying himself during certain portions of the story.

** Armus, the disgusting, hateful thing that killed Tasha Yar. And by "hateful" I mean actually ''made of hate'' -- He was formed from the evil emotions cast off by a race of aliens that AscendedToAHigherPlaneOfExistence. He kills, torments, and tortures as a matter of course -- and it's all ForTheEvulz.

*** Ahem. [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel "Yodeling Potato".]]

** The new CBS drama ''TheGoodWife'' had a rare non-murderous example of a CompleteMonster in TV talk show host Duke Roscoe. A Glenn Beck-esque political shock jock, he accused a woman whose child had been kidnapped of murdering her, hounded her until she committed suicide, then mocked her grieving husband to his face while continuing to insist that the dead woman was a murderer. When the network was sued for libel, he threatened to quit if they settled, and went on the attack against the opposing attorneys. [[spoiler: And then CONTINUED to attempt to defame them after the child he accused the woman of murdering was found alive, kidnapped by strangers.]]

*** Glenn Beck or Nancy Grace? It's worth noting that Nancy Grace did pretty much exactly what's described here to Melinda Duckett, minus the spoiler. Talk about a complete monster.

*** And let's not forget what happened to Talia Winters thanks to him: Let's just say that the programmed SplitPersonalityTakeover was [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel just the beginning]]. This, probably more than anything else, was his MoralEventHorizon.

** Someone forgot Charlotte Bayes from 'Churchgoing People', who not only abused her husband and kids, but was prone to violent fits of rage and had a sick compulsion to convince her son she was the most important woman in his life, even having him help cover up his father's horrific murder (which she committed), and Lauren Williams, the victim from 'Blackout', who abused her ''son'' when he was a teenager and planned to do the same to her ''grandson''.

** Don't forget season 7's Caleb, whom the insurmountably wicked First Evil considered his true disciple and who enjoyed asking the First to take the forms of the innocent women he killed, so he could do it all over again.

***And don't forget season 3 BigBad [[spoiler:Stephen Saunders. While he may have a FreudianExcuse of sorts (left behind in in the hands of the Drazens, he was tortured for years) his actions upon his return were so far beyond the pale (unleashing a bioterror attack that killed hundreds of unrelated innocents with a horrible, slow-acting disease, just to make Bauer and CTU "feel his pain") that he's definitely long past the MoralEventHorizon.]]

** And how could we have forgotten Tauza from "Incubator"? Not only was she in charge of a hybridization project that had at least ninety Sebacean women raped, but she also abused the surviving offspring, Scorpius, to an unbelievable extent- all in an attempt to purge him of [[FantasticRacism "Sebacean impurities"]]: torturing him with heat lamps, beating him savagely for using the word "please," and forcing him to watch a recording of his mother being raped. Then, of course, Tauza made the mistake of turning her back on Scorpius, [[TheDogBitesBack and]] [[CruelAndUnusualDeath she]] [[KarmicDeath payed]] [[{{Revenge}} for]] [[ExtremeMeleeRevenge it]]- '''[[EyeScream hard.]]'''

* Any CrimeAndPunishment or Mystery show will have at least a few of these, unless they make a point of avoiding them. Among the shows that have been seen to use the trope: ''LawAndOrder'', ''LawAndOrderSpecialVictimsUnit'', ''LawAndOrderCriminalIntent'', ''{{Matlock}}'', ''NYPDBlue'', ''{{CSI}}'', ''CSIMiami'', ''CSINewYork'', ''MagnumPI'', ''HomicideLifeOnTheStreet'', ''{{Shark}}'', ''VeronicaMars'', ''{{Bones}}'', ''TheCloser'', and the list just goes on and on and on. They're generally [[MonsterOfTheWeek Monsters Of The Week]] (no pun intended), rather thanr recurring characters though.

* Any CrimeAndPunishment or Mystery show will have at least a few of these, unless they make a point of avoiding them. Among the shows that have been seen to use the trope: ''LawAndOrder'', ''LawAndOrderSVU'', ''LawAndOrderCriminalIntent'', ''{{Matlock}}'', ''NYPDBlue'', ''{{CSI}}'', ''CSIMiami'', ''CSINewYork'', ''MagnumPI'', ''HomicideLifeOnTheStreet'', ''{{Shark}}'', ''VeronicaMars'', ''{{Bones}}'', ''{{TheCloser}}'', and the list just goes on and on and on.

*** Let's be fair. It's a show about serial killers. ''By definition'', the people they chase have to be either a complete monster or completely crazy. Any middle ground--and it's been done occasionally--is a fine, fine line.
**** Actually, to be fair, there are a good number of [=UnSubs=] that we (and the team as well) sympathize with that are neither Complete Monsters nor completely crazy. The [=UnSubs=] in "Elephant's Memory", "Pleasure is My Business", "Damaged", and "Normal" are varying degrees of sympathetic(ally fucked-up).
****Possibly the prime example of those sympathetic(ally fucked-up) [=UnSubs=] would be Tobias Henkel, [[spoiler: with his DID. His real personality is of a troubled, drug-addicted young man, but his other two personalities, Raphael and his father Charles Henkel, definitely qualify as complete monsters, especially Charles Henkel. Charles Henkel mistreated Tobias ruthlessly and it is this entity that puts Reid under cruel physical torture. Raphael's mode is more psychological, forcing Reid to chose someone to die while playing Russian Roulette on the poor agent. By this account of three entities, Tobias Henkel is 2/3 complete monster, but 1/3 sympathetic. Of course, only Reid sympathizes with Tobias while the rest of his team considers Henkel to be a complete monster.]] Whew! Had to get that out of my system.
*** The prime example of a ''CriminalMinds'' CompleteMonster has to be [[MagnificentBastard the Reaper]].

*** Um, guys? What about Frank, who likes to dissect people while they're still awake and got away by hijacking a bus full of school children and forcing Gideon to ''let him walk away'' and win.

*** ''CriminalMinds'' also offers us the Prince of Darkness, played by TimCurry. Arguably worse than the Reaper.

*** Another episode also had a particularly sadistic pedophile on his deathbed. During an interview he actually stated "I can't wait to go to Hell... [[NoJustNo all those unbaptized babies.]]"

** The Drakh. [[XJustX Just the Drakh.]]

*** While we're on ''The Wire'', don't forget Snoop. Just...Snoop.

** Sebastian, the Vorlon Inquisitor sent to test both Delenn and Sheridan. He tortures both for an extended amount of time, trying to break them, but [[TheDeterminator they wouldn't break]]. [[spoiler: Eventually, it was revealed he was JackTheRipper.]]