During the investigation of recent hollers in the Complete Monster thread, it's become apparent to the staff that an insular, unfriendly culture has evolved in the Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard threads that is causing problems.
Specific issues include:
- Overzealous hollers on tropers who come into the threads without being familiar with all the rules and traditions of the tropes. And when they are familiar with said rules and traditions, they get accused (with little evidence) of being ban evaders.
- A few tropers in the thread habitually engage in snotty, impolite mini-modding. There are also regular complaints about excessive, offtopic "socializing" posts.
- Many many thread regulars barely post/edit anywhere else, making the threads look like they are divorced from the rest of TV Tropes.
- Following that, there are often complaints about the threads and their regulars violating wiki rules, such as on indexing, crosswicking, example context and example categorization. Some folks are working on resolving the issues, but...
- Often moderator action against thread regulars leads to a lot of participants suddenly showing up in the moderation threads to protest and speak on their behalf, like a clique.
It is not a super high level problem, but it has been going on for years and we cannot ignore it any longer. There will be a thread in Wiki Talk
to discuss the problem; in the meantime there is a moratorium on further Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard example discussion until we have gotten this sorted out.
Update: The new threads have been made and can be found here:
Please see the Frequently Asked Questions and Common Requests List before suggesting any new entries for this trope.
IMPORTANT: To avoid a holler to the mods, please see here for the earliest date a work can be discussed, (usually two weeks from the US release), as well as who's reserved discussion.
When voting, you must specify the candidate(s). No blanket votes (i.e. "![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to everyone I missed").
No plagiarism: It's fair to source things, but an effortpost must be your own work and not lifted wholesale from another source.
We don't care what other sites think about a character being a Complete Monster. We judge this trope by our own criteria. Repeatedly attempting to bring up other sites will earn a suspension.
What is the Work
Here you briefly describe the work in question and explain any important setting details. Don't assume that everyone is familiar with the work in question.
Who is the Candidate and What have they Done?
This will be the main portion of the Effort Post. Here you list all of the crimes committed by the candidate. For candidates with longer rap sheets, keep the list to their most important and heinous crimes, we don't need to hear about every time they decide to do something minor or petty.
Do they have any Mitigating Factors or Freudian Excuse?
Here you discuss any potential redeeming or sympathetic features the character has, the character's Freudian Excuse if they have one, as well as any other potential mitigating factors like Offscreen Villainy or questions of moral agency. Try to present these as objectively as possible by presenting any evidence that may support or refute the mitigating factors.
Do they meet the Heinousness Standard?
Here you compare the actions of the Candidate to other character actions in the story in order to determine if they stand out or not. Remember that all characters, not just other villains, contribute to the Heinousness Standard
Final Verdict?
Simply state whether or not you think the character counts or not.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 31st 2023 at 4:14:10 AM
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to the tweak.
I'll be cautious and give a ![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_down_emoticon_3571.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
to Kron, Koba, and the Clairvoyant for Freudian Excuses being just a little too valid.
The Clairvoyant now has 4 nays and 4 yays.
"Because it was done by non malicious being that was following faulty programming, I don't think its the same level of abuse that other characters would have suffered in their childhood."
I don't follow this. Just because someone isn't malicious doesn't mean they can't horribly damage somebody.
Lizzid people!
I still don't buy Koba's assumed Freudian Excuse. How do we know if it's even canon?
I also give a yes to the Clairvoyant as it's made and infantry clear e doesn't care about his own excuse. It's just a thing that happened to him and he became evil of his own volition after.
Angel Eyes from The Good The Bad And The Ugly and Xemnas from Kingdom Hearts should be removed. Angeleyes is a bad guy, but he isn't really heinous enough to qualify, especially compared to Indio. Xemnas doesn't qualify in my opinion because he's at least partly Terra.
Gerrith Barrington from Final Fantasy Tactics and Finn from Snow White And The Huntsman should be added. For anyone that isnt familiar with these characters, Barrington razed a village because they refused to hand two teens over to him so he could use them to become king, and when Rapha, the girl found out, he started raping her to break her spirit. As for Finn, he's a serial rapist and murderer who boasts about his crimes to the husband of one of his victims. And before you ask, he has a Freudian Excuse, but it's totally irrelevant to his crimes.
Finn clearly cares for his sister and vice versa, plus his rapes are Offscreen Villainy.
I think we've had the angel Eyes discussion. The torture pushes him over the edge. I think Xemnas was well discussed too.
Gerrith sounds like a possible
Even if Finn does care for his sister, she might not have known about his rapes. Considering her hatred of men, if she knew about the above she would have probably have killed him on the spot if she knew. Besides look at Bellatrix Lestrange. She cares for her sister and she's still on the page.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Hmm, Angel Eyes seems like Charles Rane or Sean Miller: Generic bad guy except for one moment.
As for Barrington, he seems bad, but Tengille or Beolve bad?
Doesn't matter if she cares for him, but only if he cares for her. As for Bellatrix, does she care for Narcissa? That might only be Film!Bellatrix anyway.
edited 15th Jul '14 6:53:17 AM by ACW
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Making a lot of assumptions there. She's potentially quite aware of his creepy lust for Snow White and nothing indicates she would have killed him. When they're basically mentally connected, she should have heard him bragging about the Huntsman's wife to the Huntsman and she didn't seem to have an issue.
And it doesn't matter how Ravenna would respond to it. Finn loves her, giving him a redeeming quality and taking him out of CM territory. Nevermind the rapes are utterly offscreen
Barrington even boasts about his crimes right in front of Rapha's brother. That, together with being the only known rapist in the Final Fantasy series definitely puts him on par with Dycedarg Beolve in sheer depravity. As for Finn, could you really see him being redeemed through his love for his sister?
Being redeemed throughb something is not the same as the quality being a redeeming one.
I'm also noticing a lot of 'bragging about' here, which wouldn't pass our 'must be onscreen or at least Gory Discretion Shot' criteria.
On review, though, as it's been years since I played Tactics...I think Barrington can count. His onscreen nature is little different than Fire Emblem.
edited 15th Jul '14 7:03:12 AM by Lightysnake
Thanks, so could you add him please? Now I'd like to discuss Hopper. The arguement against him is he doesn't kill Molt because of a deathbed promise to his mother. But do you remember how when Molt keeps annoying him he brutally attacks one of his gang that was just standing there. Given his murderous nature it's quite likely that he attacks, and possibly kills anyone that's on hand when Molt annoys him, in other words what would normally be a redeeming feature just makes him more dangerous.
No, I won't add him because that's not how it works. People need to vote.
Hopper is on the 'Never Again' list for a reason. Hopper transferring his anger to punch another grasshopper (and why do people keep indicating he was attempting to murder anyone there? Knocking somewhat out is not fatal), when Molt squeals "remember ma!" indicates the promise means something to Hopper. We see him do this once and the shock of the Grasshoppers when Hopper murders three of them indicates he does not make some habit of randomly slaughtering his henchmen in fits of pique.
That's, once again, a redeeming quality, and taking his anger out on another henchman doesn't change that
edited 15th Jul '14 7:11:41 AM by Lightysnake
So how do you vote? I also think Ivan Ooze from the power rangers movie should be removed, he always seemed like a generic bad guy to me.
edited 15th Jul '14 7:18:59 AM by witchoftheabsolute
You present the case here and users vote.
And wait, Ooze is still up? Did we forget to put the request in?
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Well, someone makes an effortpost: Who the character is, what they did, etc. Then we vote yay or nay.
![[nja]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/user_ninja_2074.png "[nja]"){kind=small}
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I just checked; didn't see Ooze.
edited 15th Jul '14 7:22:19 AM by ACW
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
For anyone that hasn't been reading my previous posts, here's the case regarding Gerrith Barrington from Final Fantasy Tactics, he razed a village because they refused to hand two teens over to him so he could use them to become king, and when Rapha, the girl found out, he started raping her to break her spirit. I also nominate Chief Kakuzawa and Mayu's Mother from Elfen Lied. Mayu's mom struck her out of jealousy of all the "attention" she was getting from her paedophilic stepfather, and as for Kakuzawa,aside from everything else he does, his love for his daughter might have just been a way of controlling her, that possibility was even pointed out on the Elfen Lied Wiki
edited 15th Jul '14 7:29:13 AM by witchoftheabsolute
Cleric of Banjo
RE Kron, wanted to note that while the robot was not deliberately abusive, his father can definitely be blamed for leaving him in the care of the robot.
I'd be somewhat inclined to consider the Freudian Excuse in this case because it so clearly shaped the person he became. I'm not really sure what consideration we gave to freudian excuses from Red Skull and Carnage and why they weren't considered as counting. Although, regarding Carnage, IIRC, he and Bullseye have this thing where stories differ as to whether they were abused or whether they were a psycho who tormented/killed their family members, and sometimes stories have them claiming the former while the story implies the latter.
Edit, edit, edit, edit the wiki
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Re: Skull, from Wikipedia:
As a young man Schmidt was from time to time employed by a Jewish shopkeeper, whose daughter Esther was the only person who had treated Schmidt kindly up to that point. Seized with passion for Esther, Schmidt tried to force himself upon her, only for her to reject him. In unthinking fury, Schmidt murdered her. Schmidt fled the scene in terror but also felt ecstatic joy in committing his first murder. In killing Esther, he had given vent to the rage at the world that had been building up in him throughout his young life.
As for Carnage:
Witchoftheabsolute: please look at our criteria, and how to propose an example.
Mayu's mother is not remotely heinous enough for Elfen Lied, no chance. Child abuse and being a terrible person does not remotly compare to the rape, torture and butchery in that series
Cleric of Banjo
Thanks for posting those, and agreed. Both of those backstories more or less amount to "the character was a horrible person to begin with and if their experiences had any impact on them, it only amounted to shaping the kind of horrible person they were".
Edit, edit, edit, edit the wiki
I think Koba's a good example of a character who abandons redeeming qualities and audience sympathy as well.
Bullseye as well. Actuall, the way they use his Freudian Excuse is nice: When Daredevil finds out his father was abusive, he flat out tells Bullseye that he will never, ever be scared of him again. All the "I kill people for THAT" works to prove is what a pathetic, hollow excuse it truly is as Bullseye still had every chance to be something different
edited 15th Jul '14 7:40:12 AM by Lightysnake
I think the abuse may explain why Kron hates happy families, that he is jealous of them because of his own bad childhood. I don't think his childhood can explain his sadism towards Miguel. I also think Kron's anti social behavior can also be traced back to the fact that he grew up rich and entitled and as he grew older, he discovered he could get with murder and not get punished for it.
Does Kron's abusive childhood explain some of his actions? Sure. Does it explain all of his actions? I don't think so.