Can a CompleteMonster have a tragic past?

The Big Bad of one of my stories is one of the most evil villains I have ever created. She is an ancient witch whose goal is to cast a spell that will kill all humans descended from Muggles and leave only "pure" magic-users alive despite knowing that this would likely result in human extinction. She wages relentless psychological warfare on any potential ally in order to twist them to her will, and because of this is directly or indirectly responsible for countless tragedies. Trying to reason with her will only result in death since her Berserk Button is anything having to do with peaceful coexistence between magic-users and ordinary people—a line that doesn't even exist anymore since everyone in the setting can use magic now.

But she was not always like this. She was at one point a loving wife and mother whose family was persecuted and destroyed during a war between magic-users and Muggles, and her driving motivation is vengeance for that loss even though it happened centuries ago and the world has changed. While I'm trying to portray her actions as irredeemably evil, I'm also trying to give a solid motivation for them. I just wondered if this is possible?

I'm willing to answer more questions if you have them, just trying to be brief and to the point here.

edited 1st Jul '15 4:15:27 PM by Swordofknowledge

Anyone can have a tragic past.

It's just that when someone is a Complete Monster we tend to disregard their past, in very much the same way we that we disregard the potential reasons a complete asshole might have for being that bad to people; which we do because they are just that unpleasant and they aren't entitled to our sympathy when they don't even try.

Past is one thing, and our past does shape who we are. But being a Complete Monster (or a complete asshole) takes one thing that people sometimes forget is actually important: not trying not to be one. And do note that the trope page for Complete Monster does not list lack of a tragic past as a requirement.

Also, in cases like that one "motivation" as you called it generally is secondary or tertiary, if even that. Once, in the past, the person who'd slipped enough to now be called a Complete Monster might have mostly cared about this motivation, but as time progressed they slipped and now, rather than defending someone or acting in revenge or stuff like that, they probably just want to see their enemies (for whatever value of the word "enemy" they care about) bleed and suffer.

And once enough time passes, memories blur and disappear, so at some point one has to ask themselves if the character actually remembers anything of their "tragic" past or if it's just another memory long since gone. That actually might be the reason, or at least a part of it, for the character to start slipping: when you do something because of what you remember, and then you still do this even though you no longer remember, it may kind of warp your approach to it.

Kazeto's got it.

When you're dealing with a tragic past and a Complete Monster, treat the concept as two people:

Person A has the sad story that provides ample motivation and potential justifications that whoever hears about it might show a lot of understanding towards.

Person B is the psycho out for non-magical genocide.

So in the same way you might talk about twins ("Man, they're identical, but Sue's so nice and Mary's a total witch-who-wants-the-death-of-Muggles-what-a-psycho"), talk about your baddie. You might know about Sue, but you're dealing with Mary. You wouldn't lend a pencil to Mary, 'cause even though Sue is more or less your friend, Mary stabbed you in the leg with it last time. See how your feelings towards one doesn't affect your reactions to the other?

You could always introduce a foil character with a mirroring backstory, who reacted to a similar situation in a far more heroic way. That way you're emphasising how your villain could have taken a different path despite her dark past.

As a long-time poster in the Complete Monster thread the answer is "yes", with a huge "but..." attached. The more successfully you convey that tragic backstory, the more the audience is liable to sympathise, and the more likely your character is to be cut from the CM List.

I suppose one question I'd ask you is, are you really that concerned with writing a character who meets all the requirements for CM-hood and will for sure end up on the list? Or are you just trying to write an irredeemable bitch who happens to have a semi-functional Freudian Excuse? Because the latter is a lot more practical than the former, and will probably produce a better character than writing to the trope will.

Adding to what others said, a CM with a tragic past would be a great way to show how and why a person can become such an irredeemable monster. And in the hands of a skilled writer, can even deconstruct the concept of the trope.

Actually it's generally not. The only way that a character with a genuinely tragic backstory tends to stay on the CM List is if it's a) insufficient to to justify or explain their actions or b) barely touched upon. The more effort you put into the backstory, and the more effort you make to explain the CM's actions, the more likely it is that you are not writing a CM. In short, the better a writer you are, and the better the character you construct, the less of a CM they are going to be.

This is why I asked the OP what his/her actual goal is here. Is the objective simply to write a really nasty character who happens to have a tragic backstory? Because that's more than doable. Is the objective to create a contender for the Complete Monster list who has a tragic backstory? Because that's both a) very hard to do, and b) is writing to a trope rather than writing to the story.

First, thanks for all the responses, everyone.

@ Kazeto and Tartra: I see what you mean here by treating her past self and current evil (with a capital E) persona as two different people connected by a common backstory. Ironically, the villain in question has two different names: her name before the incident and the new one she took on when she started down her villainous path, as a way of saying That Woman Is Dead. The only person who refers to her by her real name is The Dragon.

@ editorguy: Hmmm. The Hero does have a similar incident happen during the course of the story—his entire town is destroyed and his father is killed, and he eventually winds up forgiving the man responsible. It is a foil for another revenge-consumed character (revenge is a big theme in this story) but I suppose that I could compare his forgiveness to her all-consuming need for vengeance as well.

@ Ambar Son Of Deshar: I wasn't exactly trying to make a Complete Monster when I created this villain, no. It's just that as I took a step back and was reading through her actions, backstory and everything, I just realized that she was placed among some of my worst characters in terms of morality. As I thought of that, I realized that although I explained her tragic backstory in great detail, it was more to establish that she did have a reason for her deeds beyond For the Evulz. There was very real pain and tragedy there but I didn't think they justified her atrocities—as I said, the targets of her revenge are long dead now and her plan will probably destroy the world. She just doesn't care. At the least, she is the personification of Revenge Before Reason.

edited 2nd Jul '15 10:36:26 AM by Swordofknowledge

Well, to be honest I didn't necessarily mean that they are two different people. Just that people change, and whatever the backstory is it's our current (or not-so-current) choices that matter. Well, that and as some fan fiction writers had already made clear, most people think that for some reason human memory is absolute when it is needed, which is quite far from the truth, so unless one explicitly tries to remember that really does blur and for characters living for centuries or longer forgetting everything that once drove them forward in their quest is a real risk.

But sure, let's go with your interpretation, it works too.

Also, as far as the whole thing goes, I say this: It doesn't matter whether the character happens to be a complete monster for as long as the character is interesting to write (for you) and read (for the readers) about and whatever happens to them is a natural progression of events. Because way too often people who try to write things gimp character development to what is less interesting and more mind-boggling than what could have been, simply because they think that the character had gone too far and instead of either leaving it be or altering the events that'd lead them to being what they are now they just change the outcome of the equation without changing the other side of it.

Because really, it sucks when people do that. Rail-roading character development instead of going back and making it so that the characters choose to take that way of their own volition should be deemed a crime against creativity. Though I probably am biased since I write from the top down (create the world of the story, create the characters and the situation, see what happens and write a chronicle of it) which obviously puts me against an approach that is the opposite of mine.

edited 2nd Jul '15 10:51:53 AM by Kazeto

@Sword of Knowledge

It doesn't actually have to justify what she did, but as long as it provides an adequate explanation it is unlikely you are writing a Complete Monster. Additionally, if her desire for revenge is at least in part because people she cared about died she's not at all a CM—caring about somebody, even a dead somebody, knocks you off the list.

Joker has a tragic past...Probably...

That doesn't matter in the slightest. Seriously, the whole point of the Joker is that whoever he was before his acid bath is completely and totally irrelevant to who he is today.

I think it does actually matter for us, though. That is, it does show that a complete monster can have a tragic past without said past actually counting for anything because their past is not the one and only thing that defines who they are; their choices right now are, instead. So it is an example.

Except that, once again, The Joker is in no way, shape or form defined by his past. In fact his past isn't detailed in any meaningful way. Saying "bad things happened to this person" is not the same as actually showing those things happening or providing an actual backstory.

Which still does not mean that he can't have a tragic past. That it doesn't play a big role, or any role at all even, does in no way mean that it stops being tragic if it happened to be so.

Irrelevance to what he is like aside, the past is there. And the thread had started with the question of whether it is possible for such a case to occur, not whether you do or do not count past as tragic if it is so depending on something else that isn't the past in question. And whether we know the details or not is, likewise, not important for as long as we can say whether the past was or wasn't tragic (though of course it does help, because without details we can either guess or take someone else's word for it, which is not at all proper when trying to analyse something even if there are times when it's the only choice).

edited 7th Jul '15 7:07:37 AM by Kazeto

If you don't talk about the past and only imply something bad happened, that's not really tragic in any meaningful sense. It doesn't evoke audience sympathy, or even matter to the character. It's also just poor writing, essentially a cheap attempt at saying "this character does too have depth" without actually having to provide that depth, or engage the audience.

To put it another way, things are tragic because of the emotional effect they have on the character. If they have no effect on the character, it's pretty hard to call them tragic.

edited 7th Jul '15 7:21:43 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar

I think you are mistaking having a tragic past with wearing it on top of your head for anyone to see. And that's that, because there's no point in continuing to play verbal tennis if one of the players insists that their opponent can't score any points because they aren't wearing socks.

I would argue that a Complete Monster is much better off with a tragic past, not for the purposes of a Freudian Excuse, but just because no one who isn't severely mentally ill is going to be a complete monster without some kind of tragic background that pushed them in that direction.

Or you simply don't understand the interaction of tragedy with the audience.

Understand it I do, but that simply is not what had first been asked in this thread. I am very well aware that if the past is not presented to the readers or viewers, no matter how tragic or whatever else this past would be, its presence means nothing.

However, I am also aware of the fact that it is possible for a character to both have a tragic past and be a complete monster; in light of this, his attempts at playing verbal tennis went nowhere, and your attempt at whatever it is you are attempting now, Night, is no more successful; the latter even more so than that, to be honest, but that is not his fault and I do not care to play verbal tennis with you so I'll leave that here.

@Padur Kuril

Nobody who is severely mentally ill is a Complete Monster, thanks all the same. Have a genuine mental illness, get cut from the list. As for being better off with a tragic backstory again, no. Have a legitimate Freudian Excuse, get cut from the list.

@Kazeto

Great idea—don't say things like "his attempts at verbal tennis went nowhere", or that crock about "not wearing socks". It's poor forum etiquette at best, and will get us all modded at worst.

If a character's tragic past is what made them into what they are, then they have a functioning Freudian Excuse. In which case, they will most likely get cut from the CM list barring an exceptionally good case being made for inclusion. I know this, because I'm a regular participant in that thread, and have been for years. Conversely, if the character's past has no effect whatsoever on them, then there is little to no reason to include it in the story (unless the point is to demonstrate the character's monstrosity by having tragedy not effect them in the slightest). And if you are including things in the story that do not need to be there, then that is, by definition, bad writing.

As for whether what I'm saying is relevant to the OP's question, I'd say so. Sword of Knowledge started this thread in the context of a story s/he is working on. Presumably s/he wishes to write well. So my saying that 9 times out of 10 giving a CM a tragic backstory is a sign of poor writing, is, in fact, on topic.

Complete Monster is a reaction trope. Straight up. The audience's interaction with their backstory is utterly relevant as such.

Because we are not a part of the story, we have the luxury of judging characters perhaps more fairly than this who are (and perhaps more fairly than they deserve). This is nowhere more true than in extreme situations such as judging someone literally irredeemable. Throw in some Evil Is Cool and a few other tropes about sympathy for the devil and you have to understand that there's a real possibility for difference between how the characters and the audience may seen the character.

Anyone who doesn't understand that writes such situations at their own peril. We'd be offering poor advice indeed not to warn them.

edited 7th Jul '15 3:30:25 PM by Night

To be honest, I use "verbal tennis" to mean any discussion in which there are people with conflicting ideas; that it "went nowhere" is an over-simplification, yes, but though I try not to flip out at people for nothing I really don't have the patience necessary to potentially spend a page arguing with Night in a way that qualifies for an example of Poor Communication Kills; that'd happened already, more than once, and though I can't say that I'm "annoyed" or "angry" because it's just a forum in the end, it disrupts the discussion even more so than what I did and is a genuine waste of time on both sides, hence the attempt to stop that pre-emptively.

That is not to say that I have "something against him", because outside of those strange moments I really don't, and in those it's about the moments and not about him at all.

I'll refrain from commenting about the "crock" thing (there was actually a short paragraph there about it, but to be honest that's not really relevant to the discussion and I find I don't really care if someone finds my attempt at calling them out on something the same thing). But really, writer's forum, not reader's forum, and there's a difference.


Anyway, my point, from the beginning of this particular part of the discussion, is that a tragic past is a tragic past and it's there if it's there, even if it had no effect on the character's current mental state. Using the last mentioned example (Joker), and assuming that he actually does have a tragic past (because I'm taking the word of one who'd mentioned it as I do not care about the character enough to be sure of it myself), if he does have a tragic past he does have it, even if it is not at all relevant to his state of mind and even if we do disregard its existence for this or any other reason. It may or may not have been intentional, but you did write something that can be summed up with "if the tragic past of a character is not the reason for their mental state, they had no tragic past even if they had it", which is the specific bit that I disagreed with. The readers might not care because they don't see it, the characters might not care because whatever reason, but for us, here, trying to write things or give advice about writing, a tragic past that is not seen but is there is still a tragic past.

And I think I'm done with this particular part of this discussion. Not because I'm feeling negative about it or anything (as already mentioned, it's just a forum), but rather because I very much doubt any further reply of mine to this specific issue in this thread would be anything more than just repeating myself which is counter-productive (well, that and the "mods" part because only like half of this message is on the topic and the rest is a reply which we probably should have taken to P Ms to begin with but it's likely ending now either way, though to be honest I have yet to notice their presence here which might or might not simply be because I'm used to a tighter, let's say, style of moderation); I wrote what I wrote, clarified what I felt unclear, if you agree then that's this and if you don't then that's that.


And I'll just add that yes, I am aware that Complete Monster is a subjective trope. But tropes pertaining to darker pasts aren't. So yes, audience reactions are very important to whether the character counts as a Complete Monster; but not that relevant when deciding whether a tragic past is tragic.

edited 26th Oct '15 9:01:28 AM by Kazeto

The Royal Brat.

This is talking past, rather than addressing, the idea that if someone does not feel any negative emotion towards an event, it is not a tragedy for them.

For example, a man's best friend kills his wife out of the blue. The man's grateful to the friend, because he was sure his wife was cheating on him. This is not a tragic past for the man. He loves the outcome. It's about as tragic as a Viking's fond memory of his first rape and pillage experience - awful for the victims, but then our character doesn't care about the victims.

The mystique about the Joker is that he's prefers his past to be multiple choice.

He's even the Trope Namer. He is defined by who he is, not what he was, because he's exactly the type to lie about his past, exaggerate details, forget something or other about it, change stories mid-sentence, be so crazy that we can't take his word for it, or even tell the truth, but dress it up as a lie.

edited 7th Jul '15 7:00:45 PM by Serocco