Tragic Villain vs. Complete Monster

I think you are interpreting the trope as being more extreme than Kazeto and I. It is entirely possible for a real life person to meet the basic trope definition of Complete Monster. And the two reasons for the ban do not directly relate to the trope definition; a person can still have done something "decent" - for any value of "decency" - and still be a Complete Monster for everything else they did.

This talk about "A CM in Real Life" make me think in a Council of Angels who send people to the Seven Circle of Hell. Is just like our CM Clean-Up.

PD: Ambar Son Of Deshar, you and the CM clean up gonna have a "fun" afterlife. Good luck judging serial skull rapists. And delete them just because they like the ice cream and don't rape the saleswoman because she was nice.

First Circle of Hell: Anti Villians belong here.

Last Circle of Hell: Here our Complete Monsters.

Are many circles between both. Many, many,maaaany villains belong here.

A genocide madmen belong to the Third Circle, he is the heinous standart for the show but he values his soldiers and only sacrifice them in his Despair Event Horizon.

But other genocide madmen can belong to the Seven Circle, he just hate for the sake of hate (and narcissism), he sacrifice his soldiers For the Evulz.

Or other genocide in the sixth circle. He destroy cities, kill innocent, sacrifice his soldier every time when the things get a bit hard...but he values the hope. He like the strong of his enemies. He is awful human being but he not is the worse guy.

edited 25th Oct '15 1:50:28 PM by KazuyaProta

No they can't. That's why it's called Complete Monster. Not 99% Monster. Not Incomplete Monster. Complete. Characters with positive traits are cut. Characters who do something decent are cut. Characters who have a functioning Freudian Excuse are cut.

Being a CM is not just about being a dick. It is about being far and away the worst person in the setting and having no redeeming qualities and no justification for your actions. That's the trope. If the character has a good quality, or has even one Pet the Dog, they don't qualify.

And that is the problem with this forum's title. What it's really asking about is whether one should try to make villains sympathetic, or go the utterly evil route. And that's a perfectly valid question, with a wide number of possible answers. What's not valid is structuring it as though every villain is either a tragic woobie or a CM candidate. There's a vast gulf in-between those two extremes, encompassing characters of every possible level of moral depravity.

My definition is right?.

Yeah, Ambar is correct, that's how we define Complete Monster in the clean-up forum. Any redeeming or sympathetic moment, no matter how minor or how horrible they act regardless, leads to an automatic cut. By the definition of this site, I agree it's impossible for a real-life person to count since we have no idea what goes on in a person's head, no matter how awful they are. We can't assume they've never felt love or guilt or a moment of altruism just because their crimes are horrible.

But getting back to the original purpose of this thread, I'd say I'd prefer Tragic Villains, or sympathetic villains in general. In general I rarely find Complete Monsters fascinating because the nature of their trope generally leaves them as very basic characters with shallow motives and emotions. They're only interesting to read about when they're written entertainingly or horrifyingly. Because sympathetic villains are more three-dimensional and we get to see their journey, how such a pitiable person can fall so far, I'd say sympathetic villains are inherently more interesting.

You also can show a Tragic Villain losing his good traits and becoming more and more cruel and despricable. In the end the poor woobie become into a awful human being without nothing good in his mind who make awful things who only few can.

edited 25th Oct '15 4:49:59 PM by KazuyaProta

If such an extremely literal, absolute interpretation of the trope name is correct, that should be made explicit in the trope definition itself. As I said before, a lot of the reasons you mentioned can at most be only inferred from the trope definition, and there is nothing saying why there are no real life examples in the description. If what you say is true, then the quote above should be cut-and-pasted into the the trope description to avoid any further confusion.

If you don't want a trope to be misinterpreted, then leave no room for interpretation.

edited 25th Oct '15 5:44:05 PM by shiro_okami

I have to agree with Shiro. I also have to agree that "any good deed grants absolution" is ridiculous. That is the position being espoused, in effect, that petting one puppy would in effect outweigh any number of atrocities in the evaluation of a person's character.

The cleanup thread in pursuing a definition of their own devising has exceeded its mandate and become part of the problem if what you are saying is true. Attempting to apply a morality trope inflexibly was folly to begin with. Just for giggles, it's also a YMMV too isn't it? And yet you insist on a hard and fast rule.

That's nuts.

edited 25th Oct '15 6:11:52 PM by Night

and Maybe we're confunding.

The only way who someone who has a Pet the Dog moment can be a Complete Monster is who if he destroy his own good action with a bad action who especifically is against that Pet the Dog moment. Mind you: Give money to a kid in the street, only for stealing all his money after.

It is in the trope description. Right here:

The character must never be presented in a positive way, and must never display any altruistic qualities. Period, end of sentence. Right there on the trope page; not sure how that could be much clearer. If after reading that you still think you should be able to list a character who has a redeeming quality, then I'm not sure what to tell you. If you want to argue for a policy change,here's the Clean-Up Thread.

Except that a good deed doesn't grant absolution. You're assuming that "not being on the CM" list is somehow us saying that this person is a wonderful human being. Which is a little like assuming that the statement "bin Laden killed fewer people than Hitler" is an endorsement of bin Laden. It's not; it's an acknowledgement of reality.

Complete Monster is a trope. It's not a place to list "villains who repulse me" or "villains whom I hate" or "villains who killed one of my favourite characters". It's neither a badge of honour, nor a mark of shame to be on the list. It's just an acknowledgement that you meet the trope requirements, as is the case with every other page on the site.

As for the assertion that the Clean-Up Thread is somehow part of the problem, if you really believe that, come on down to the thread and make your case for a policy change. I will note, by the way, that the accusation that we've exceeded our mandate is pretty hard to swallow given that everything we do still has to go through the mods for approval at the end of the day, and one of them is a regular participant in the thread.

edited 25th Oct '15 6:50:43 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Can a Complete Monster have comedic traits and still qualify for the trope? And for that matter, can those traits be used to enhance their evil?

Yes, some of his action can be played for laughts. Are many Laughably Evil characters, Kefka and certain vertions of The Joker (when he is not a grimderp cartoon of himself. KA: DEEP!Joker) are good examples of both tropes.

edited 25th Oct '15 7:37:17 PM by KazuyaProta

Let me spell it out for you, Ambar.

There is a huge gulf between the first quote and the second. Just saying that they are "completely devoid of altruistic qualities" lacks any kind of emphasis and only means that the character is selfish. It is not the same thing as saying that a character has no redeeming qualities and has never done anything good in their entire life. Now the second quote has emphasis and actually gets the point across regarding the qualities and actions of the character. I could imagine a real life person could fit the description in the first quote, but I would be forced to admit it would be impossible for the second quote to apply to a real life person.

edited 25th Oct '15 7:58:04 PM by shiro_okami

I am going to post a link to the CM FAQ right here. People who have questions about it can read that. If they still have questions they can take it to the Clean-Up Thread which I have linked to above. Can we please get back on topic?

The first quote spells it out just fine. It states that the character cannot have a redeeming quality and can never be portrayed positively. If the character ever does anything good, it invalidates that part of the description. It's really that simple. As with any trope, you should really be going in with the assumption that if it doesn't meet those requirements, it doesn't count.

"Void of altruistic qualities" means exactly what it says, "void of altruistic qualities". It doesn't mean "except for that one nice thing he did for that one guy one time. We can totally ignore that." It means what it says, and if you think there's wiggle room there, it isn't because of anything in the wording.

Demanding that we put up a disclaimer like the second quote is like saying that the Psycho for Hire page should have a disclaimer stating A reminder: If the character is neither Psycho nor For Hire do not list them.

People need to stop treating Complete Monster like some sort of final moral judgement on the character. It's not. It's a trope. A character being cutlisted is not an endorsement of their behaviour, or a statement that they are anything other then a terrible person. It is a statement that they do not qualify for the trope. Do you think that we, for instance, removed Lex Luthor because we think he's a wonderful human being? No, we removed Luthor because he doesn't meet the trope requirements.

Finally, I'm not sure what any of you hope to accomplish by complaining about it to me. I have no authority to change how things are done. I'm simply commenting on what the rules are. Take it to the Clean-Up Thread, or contact a mod, or something. And can we please get back on topic?

In a way, can a Complete Monster with a sense of humor be worse than one that's emotionless the whole time?

The reason it's subjective is there are ambiguities regarding the qualifiers, but I'd think for a character to be considered a Complete Monster, they'd need to hit a number of criteria. Chief among those criteria is a lack of redeeming qualities.

A character not being a complete monster does not make them good people. There's a lot of room in between for gray. Nobody is saying any good deed redeems a character of makes the better people, but even totally vile, evil people can have a single good trait that stops them from being 'Complete' monsters. A good deed with no alternative motive shows they aren't 'pure' evil, as does having a loved one.

I don't see how the FAQ goes against the definition, either.

And I will just note that the FAQ does not actually counter what I'd said.

But whatever, I am not going to be arguing about stupid semantics in a hypothetical scenario yet again.

EDIT: And Lightysnake is here. Welcome to the party.

@Night

You know Night, I'm going to open this by stating that under normal circumstances, I tend to agree with your positions. I tend to agree with your arguments, and I find our moral/political/what have you views typically line up. I say this because I have a suspicion this thread is about to derail to somewhere very ugly, and so I want that reminder out there to make it clear that this isn't about you or about Shiro. I have exactly nothing against either of you, and quite frankly, would rather not be having this discussion. Unfortunately I've been involved with the CM Clean-Up Thread for a very long time at this point, and unless Exister or Lightysnake or Shaoken or Hodor 2 or one of the other longterm posters wants to have this discussion with you I'm what's available.

The trope was put on YMMV because of consistent and constant vandalism being inflicted on the main pages thanks to it. People flagrantly ignored the trope's description, and filled it with examples that did not qualify. Moving it to subjective did not fix the problem; in fact it only made it worse. The trope page was eventually locked and authority handed over the Clean-Up Thread because of continued vandalism and misuse. That was a decision made by the mods, as far as I know, as a group. The page remains locked and subject to scrutiny because people still try to flood it with everything from MLP porn to outright lies about the events of series. It's a lousy situation, but it's the one we've got to work with.

Personally I think it's a damn shame that it came to this. Very few other tropes have ever attracted the amount of misuse this one did. Few of those that did attract that much misuse are still around; the other option was to be cutlisted. Again people need to stop treating the CM trope as though it were a moral judgement. It isn't. Which is why it doesn't matter that a majority of people wouldn't forgive a killer of fifty because he was nice to one other person. It's not a moral judgement, or a statement that they're a good person or anything like that. It's just a statement they don't qualify for a trope.

A while back you yourself made this post on the subject of how far things have to go before somebody can be judged truly irredeemable. Now you seem to have given up that position. Or maybe you haven't and that post and your most recent ones are reconcilable to you. I don't pretend to know exactly where you are coming from. Maybe you do think that a tragic backstory is a disqualifier but that doing a good deed isn't.

Final point—complaining here, once again, solves nothing. If you genuinely believe that bounds have been overstepped contact a mod. Come to the Clean-Up Thread and participate. Telling me how wrong we are isn't accomplishing anything for you though. Even if I were to come around to your point of view, I'm one person with no more weight in the Clean-Up Thread than anybody else. Moreover, this is still not the topic of the thread. Jeez, I make one comment on how there's a vast number of characters populating the space between "Tragic Villain" and "CM" and this happens.

edited 25th Oct '15 9:19:05 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Just going to give a to Ambar.

But yeah, please take it to the CM thread. It will be a lot more productive.

As it is, this thread evidences some definite misunderstanding of the trope and (I think more importantly) unwarranted hostility to anyone trying to argue differently.

Hello guys. Is necessary say who i agree with Ambar?

PD: Again, are many circles un Hell, the Tragic Villain is in the first, The Complete Monster is the last. Are many of cicles between both.

edited 25th Oct '15 9:32:52 PM by KazuyaProta

This topic is pointless and hostile. Continue any conversation in the CM thread. ~Night, you are welcome to disagree with the consensus of the troper body and mod staff, but expressing it in that manner is a quick road to a ban. Am I in any way unclear?