Complete Monsters

Dunno about anyone else, but I find this interpretation far more disturbing than the conventional complete monster trope. Not just imagining dealing with such a person, but attempting to imagine what it must be like to be one. I must do the latter at some point. I'm not sure where to begin with that, but the idea that someone can be born that incompatible with their world and that incapable of understanding what drives it sounds like the highest form of nightmare fuel for both the "force of nature" and those who must live with them.

whoever wrote this shit needs to step on a rake in a comedic fashion

Serial killers that is about as good as it gets.

Who watches the watchmen?

good?

He who fights bronies should see to itthat he himself does not become a brony. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, Pinkie Pie gazes Also

I do not think that a person who is violently malevolent for no reason other than out of enjoyment or compulsion to do so, and has not the slightest chance of redemption, is truly a monster or a "force of nature". In a more figurative sense, I guess they could be described as a monster, but I think it would be more accurate to say that such a person was mentally ill; such behaviour suggests to me both a lack of empathy and a reckless disregard for one's own safety, which is at the very least suggestive of insanity to me.

With regards to fiction, I think the fact that villains are human is often more interesting than the fact that they're villains.

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Ah yes, the insanity route. Far too many killers have gotten off by pleaing insanity than should be allowed.

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Not really. Insanity pleas rarely work, and even if successful it's not like they just tell you it's okay to go home now.

Yeah, you're likely to lose your freedom for even longer. Still, less chance of rape/murder in prison so...

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All organisms are forces of nature.

Someone who has the darkest of impulses, such as to murder or rape, and who might have the willpower to fight that impulse, but makes no attempt, instead revelling in their crimes, is someone I would classify as a Complete Monster.

Anyone else, even the people treated classically as being the most evil men in history, generally has more complicated motivations than just For the Evulz.

edited 15th Jan '11 4:18:04 PM by GameChainsaw

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.

I don't think anyone's motivation is For the Evulz without a Freudian Excuse or mental problem. Thus, nobody's a Complete Monster.

edited 15th Jan '11 5:02:55 PM by Ultrayellow

Except for 4/1/2011. That day lingers in my memory like...metaphor here...I should go.

Considering the definition is of the subjective variety I wouldn't say that either.

edited 15th Jan '11 5:15:25 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

The entire concept of a "monster" requires one to treat morality as a quantifiable trait. It isn't though, so it's not that complicated. It's just people judging whether people are behaving in line with their personal preferences, and hating those that don't.

"I didn't steal it; I'm borrowing it until I die."

I'm not sure I can ever empathize with a serial rapist.

I think I could, potentially. Depending on how they were presented to me, of course. Same goes for a child molester, serial killer, torturer or genocidal dictator.

It's kind of uncomfortable, empathising with a morally repulsive character. Used skillfully, forcing the reader to empathise with such a character is a powerful device for a writer, I think.

edited 17th Jan '11 12:45:26 PM by BobbyG

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I think I could, rather easily. The types of rapists described in this certainly don't look difficult to empathize with. Not that they're the sorts of people I'd want to ever meet, but their psyches aren't alien. Insecurity, misplaced rage, selfishness, self pity, desire for control, dragging others down to feel better about oneself, feelings of inadequacy— these are all things that normal people feel to some degree or another at some point or another. Humanity has a dark side. Theirs is just more pronounced in different areas.

I suppose one thing that a normal person probably wouldn't relate to is when the rapists have a fetish; like the guy described in this who sneaks into homes and steals women's underwear, or the ones who are literally turned on by the victim's suffering.

edited 17th Jan '11 7:24:33 PM by Tongpu

**reads list...eye twitch...**

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I feel the need to say that a complete monster CAN have a Freudian Excuse, but not one that justifies their actions. and if you click the link to For the Evulz, it actually lists Real Life examples. And I would say yes, Complete Monsters do exist. I will agree with the person who said Mengele. There were others but for the moment I'll just leave it at that.

edited 25th Jan '11 4:33:36 AM by ading

"Beat up an elderly person? That."

I heard of a Native guy who murdered this elderly man who'd been a sexually abusive teacher at the residential school that the Native guy went to. Would you consider him a Complete Monster for getting revenge on his abuser once the guy became defenseless?

If I'm asking for advice on a story idea, don't tell me it can't be done.

Yes, we have laws for that. That and I can't really support vigilante justice.

edited 25th Jan '11 11:20:36 AM by saladofstones

Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.

Oh, look, it's approximately the 150th thread on this topic. No, I wasn't keeping exact count.

Complete Monster, being a trope, cannot exist in Real Life because Real Life does not have a narrative. Tropes only exist in media.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Imma let you finish but let me just say that I think complete monsters should have won.

Well he's talking about WWII when the Chinese bomb pearl harbor and they commuted suicide by running their planes into the ship.

Tropes can and do exist in life. I'm unconvinced that this is true of Complete Monster, but nevertheless, many of the concepts which, when they appear in fiction, we call "tropes" are, in fact, phenomena which we can observe in the real world, and which are not reliant upon the existance of a plot or a deliberate author.

edited 25th Jan '11 11:28:26 AM by BobbyInTheLibrary

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Tropes are based on, inspired by, even copied from real life phenomena. But the way we define them on This Very Wiki, they exist only in the context of narrative. See Trope.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Doesn't seem like a huge stretch from there to extend them to real life, so long as you're aware that the articles were written with the intent of describing fiction and are unlikely to be a precise fit for patterns in the real world.

The problem with Complete Monster being the question of whether such a personality ever occurs in real life. I think it's at least partly a matter of perspective whether or not the term can be applied to a given individual.

edited 25th Jan '11 11:46:50 AM by BobbyInTheLibrary

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Complete Monster doesn't describe a personality; it describes someone with no redeeming traits and no valid excuse who commits terrible acts. "No redeeming traits" is impossible to describe objectively. Ditto "valid excuse". Ditto "terrible acts", although not quite as much.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"