Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

There really is not much to say about the song. A man slaughters the inhabitants of a land to make it his own.

edited 21st Sep '14 3:15:04 PM by bobg

• The Black Heart's Janos: Keep
• Terranigma's Henry: Cut
• Haunted 2005: Cut
• Cut the Heartcore and Life in a Game examples

I am going to say to Murmandamus, Blake and Takaoka.

I think its 6 to 0 for Dolim, so I will do a write up for him soon.

Murmandamus's race sounds a lot like the Yuuzhan Vong, who by the virtue of their morality being so weird still ended up rather sympathetic despite all the trouble they caused, so I'll have to think on him.

In the meantime, I wanted to run another couple Shin Megami Tensei candidates by you, specifically from Shin Megami Tensei II. Surprisingly, despite being "That game where you beat up God," I'm not actually talking about YHVH, but rather the Archangels Uriel, Raphael, and Michael.

First, a bit of backstory: After Theend, the city of Tokyo has been overtaken by a theocratic government, Tokyo Millennium, run by the Four Archangels: the three mentioned above and their more redeemable sister Gabriel. It's divided into five districts: Arcadia, Valhalla, the Factory, Holytown, and Central, and the Archangels dick with each of them in its own way. Valhalla is the most independent of the districts, and once the Archangels grow sick of that they send the demon Abaddon to swallow the entire town whole, promising to restore him to angelhood if he does so. Then they kick him down to the Abyss once he's no longer useful. The workers of the Factory are kept brainwashed by the song of a Siren, who is routinely tortured so she keeps singing. Arcadia at first seems to be idyllic, but it's eventually revealed that the apparent paradise is a virtual reality; its citizens are actually brain-dead vegetables hooked up to Lotus Eater Machines, and it's stated that the Archangels' master plan is to do this to all of Tokyo, then the world. Finally, Holytown remains the Yes-Man district for most of the game, until the point where the Archangels say that unless the heroes surrender to them, they'll have the district's air supply cut off.

The Archangels are the cause of most of the problems in the game, and even after their deaths their shadow persists. As for competition, YHVH himself, despite how infamous his appearance is, is really only in the last scene, and Lucifer is at his most well-intentioned here, as well. The sympathetic Law faction representatives, Gabriel and Satan (who, yes, is a different person, and enemy, to Lucifer) are totally revolted by the Archangels' selfishness. My concern with heinousness is that YHVH himself plans to destroy the world (which functions as a rather effective Hope Spot: after the Archangels' defeat you're reassured YHVH does not endorse enslaving the Earth... only to find out a few hours later that this is because he endorses destroying it), but, again, since this only comes up at the very end of the game the Archangels have a greater quantity of evil deeds to their name. My other concern is that they're not really distinct from each other, though Michael is presumably in charge. Is three too many for a group?

We can count 3 people as a sole Complete Monster without it counting as a group. Tiberiu Bulat, his son Cristu Bulat, and their associate Vera are all listed as 1 entry for The Punisher MAX for example.

Sounds heinous enough to qualify.

Also, thoughts on my Redyue writeup back in post 30714 before finally getting Ryoma's effortpost up?

Does the Masked Devil sound like a keep? It basically started a Zombie Apocalypse after its demise just so that it could kill more people...aside from freeing it of course.

The noobs killed at least fifteen million Runescape players...

edited 21st Sep '14 5:12:45 PM by Cakeman

True (though three's probably the limit).
As for the Vong, sympathetic? I guess Onimi manipulated them?

The franchise TMNT character sheet page lists a Pet the Dog moment for Utrom Shredder:

• Pet the Dog: 4Kids cartoon. Overlaps with Papa Wolf, surprisingly. He seems to hold genuine concern for his adoptive daughter Karai. Until she refused to let him kill the Turtles.

I totally disagree with that, there is no evidence that Utrom Shredder cares about Karai as anything except an asset to him. When Karai died in the Bad Future episode, Shredder didn't seem to notice and Shredder had no problem sacrificing Karai when he tried to destroy the mulitvere. Shredder is a manipulative psychopath in that series, he only cares about other people if they are useful to him, when they are no longer useful, he has no need for them.

The fact that Onimi was actively steering them away from a peaceful resolution to the conflict made me feel kinda bad for them. Maybe it's just me.

edited 21st Sep '14 6:18:21 PM by HamburgerTime

In "Don't drink the water" it's implied at the end that the singer killed the natives after they refused to move, because he sings "Upon these poor souls ill build Heaven and call it home cause you're all dead now!". He then sings about how he'll live with greed, no mercy, frenzied feeding, hatred, jealiousy, and the notion that he doesn't need anyone because he is the only one who matters.

What do you all think, does he count?

Go a little more in depth than that. We need to actually know the character, even if it is just a song. From what you've said so far, he just sounds like a crazy murderer, and that's usually not enough to count.

I'd call the Vong more tragic than sympathetic, myself, especially since the backstory the last book reveals for them shows them as a species-wide case of He Who Fights Monsters (and yeah, Onimi was using them). I'd say there are individual sympathetic Vong, though.

Here are the lyrics, Ill let you decide for yourselves.

Come out come out

no use in hiding

come now, come now

can you not see me?

There's no place here

what were you expecting?

No room for both

just room for me

so you will lay your arms down

yes I will call this home

away, away

you have been banished

your land is gone

and given me

and here I will spread my wings

yes I will call this home

what's this you say

you feel a right to remain

then stay and I will bury you

what's that you say

your fathers spirit still lives in this place

I will silence you

here's the hitch

your horse is leaving

don't miss your boat

it's leaving now

and as you go I will spread my wings

yes I will call this home

I have no time to justify to you

fool, you're blind move aside for me

all I can say to you my new neighbor

is you must move on or I will bury you

now as I rest my feet by this fire

those hands once warmed here

I have retired them

I can breathe my own air

I can sleep more soundly

upon these poor souls

I'll build Heaven and call it home

because you're all dead now

I live with my justice

I live with my greedy need

I live with no mercy

I live with my frenzied feeding

I live with my hatred

I live with my jealiousy

I live with the notion

that I don't need anyone but me

don't drink the water

don't drink the water

there's blood in the water

don't drink the water

edited 21st Sep '14 7:10:29 PM by bobg

...Nah.

Truth be told, I'm skeptical that "conventional" music (as opposed to a concept album or something) can ever have a character qualify.

Alright, thread's quiet; I'll put in my two candidates I've had on my mind for a while. Seven months, in fact.

The first is from The Flight of Dragons and the villain is the dragon Bryagh.

Who is he?

Bryagh is the literal dragon to the Big Bad Ommadon and the Arch-Enemy of Sir Orrin. He acts as Ommadon's primary operative, steed, and general dragon, but he stands out as the only wholly evil dragon in the setting and is probably worse than Ommadon himself.

What has he done?

Bryagh's defining trait is his absolute sadism and love for violence. Seven years before the main story, Sir Orrin was taking a dainty little stroll when he came across a nest of a couple dozen dragon eggs. Before he could observe them further, though, Bryagh swoops down and starts to eat the eggs. Orrin reacts understandably and confronts the dragon, but Bryagh nonchalantly backhands him and knocks him out. When Orrin comes to, Bryagh has eaten all but one egg. Sir Orrin tricks Bryagh into filling himself up with flammable gas, then igniting that with the sparks of his gauntlet and defeating the dragon, leading to Bryagh's bitter hatred of him.

After recovering, Bryagh returns again under the service of Ommadon to help the dark sorcerer bring about the end of the world. Though he primarily acts under Ommadon's orders, it isn't until the climax where Complete Monster starts to show. Bryagh swoops down onto the Five-Man Band and proceeds to slaughter each and every one of them, including Orrin and his love interest, leaving only Peter surviving. He only stops to sadistically gloat and laugh about this in Sir Orrin's face before engaging in a Mutual Kill with the knight.

Any mitigating factors?

No standard issues. Bryagh is defined as a dragon who gets his kicks by killing things. His Moral Event Horizon was very similar to Turnatt's; cannibalizing an entire nest of dragon eggs for no apparent reason. It could be explained by hunger, except Sir Orrin reacts with disgust, and Bryagh is clearly anything but a mere predator, so the best reason we can infer is that it's just due to bloodlust.

Now, there is a bit of a tricky thing here. Ommadon's the Big Bad, and so for most of the movie Bryagh acts as his silent dragon. True, we do see him absolutely relishing the prospect of destruction and eagerly awaiting orders (which Ommadon merrily supplies; "Yes, Bryagh, it's your turn now.. You and your legions, attack, demolish, devour, burn, grind them to dust! Go forth and death be thy destination!") but his second assault against the heroes could easily be explained by him carrying out Ommadon's orders. However, Bryagh takes this opportunity to relentlessly mock Orrin, his arch enemy, after personally killing his love interest, before attempting to burn him alive. Bryagh was acting out of little more than selfish revenge for the incident seven years ago, if not his own sadistic joy. He passes in my eyes, according to that.

In terms of the heinous standard, Bryagh had far less resources and was primarily subservient to Ommadon, but despite this, he has more despicable actions that can be attributed to him. He's far more unstable and vicious than his master, and though Ommadon's goal is the destruction of mankind, he does little else aside from turn into a monster, and use Bryagh to do his dirty work. Bryagh, as stated before, is obviously taking these opportunities and working with them.

Conclusion?

Bryagh is a cannibal, a child murderer, a Hero Killer at the level of Grievous (he kills four named characters, all whom were Badass; one by simply throwing them) a Knight of Cerebus, and a sadistic Blood Knight that was taken as far as you could in a family movie about talking dragons. I think he counts.

Now, the second candidate; Abdul Aziz Al-Razim, or just Razim from Alex Rider.

Who is he?

Razim is the villain of the ninth Alex Rider book Scorpia Rising. He's a scientist affiliated with SCORPIA and the biggest sociopath in the series.

What has he done?

Razim started off his little streak by being born an Enfante Terrible. He stabbed his own nanny in the leg, strangled his own dog to death to see if he would have any reaction (he didn't) and sold out his own parents to Saddam Hussein. In the plot proper, Razim strays from SCORPIA's normal motives and engineers experiments of pain. By means of doing this, he experiments on innocent people, and by experiment, he tortures people to death to measure the amount of pain with a unit he dubs "Razims." He claims he's doing it For Science! but the way he's doing it and the sociopathic qualities that stem from it makes it clear his motive is nothing but a demented perversion of For Science!. Alex suspects that he draws amusement from these experiments. We can add sadism to his laundry list; go clear, we haven't even got to what he does in the main story.

Razim works to return the Elgin Marbles to Greece from Britain, or else reveal the contents of the Horseman file and defame Britain, permanently ruining Britain's reputation as part of a somewhat complex scheme that ultimately means profit for Scorpia and its affiliates. Razim makes enemies with Alex Rider, and kidnaps Jack Starbright, a major character, and possibly the closest thing Alex has to a parental figure, using her as a hostage to make Alex comply with his demands. Razim meets Alex for dinner and states that while revenge and love and things like that are a waste of time, he'd still gladly have Alex killed slowly and painfully as he's in the power position. After Razim has Alex tied down, Razim orders Starbright killed in an exploding car and forces Alex to watch. Alex's grief is so much it causes him to faint. Razim's reaction? Nonchalantly remark that his emotional pain was so high he might have to create a second measurement for it. He later goes on have his Dragon assassinate the US Secretary of State, framing Alex in the process so that he'll be shot dead. His last encounter starts with Razim ordering his men to kill Alex and ends with Razim flying into a rage as he's sucked into a massive pile of salt, which gets underneath his skin and boils him alive.

Any mitigating factors?

Let's talk about the heinous standard. Razim's crimes weren't as broad as Rothman or Winston Yu, but Razim is by far the most personal foe Alex has faced, being responsible for the death of a major character, Alex's guardian no less, and being the darkest Knight of Cerebus the series has seen yet. Even taking that out of the picture, he's still responsible for a good chunk of deaths via a much more cruel and drawn-out fashion than Rothman or Winston's victims. I say even given the standard, he counts in his own way.

Aside from that, hell no. He's an utter sociopath reviled by every other character who might actually be drawing a sadistic fascination from his victim's torturous deaths. His motive is nothing more than a perversion of the scientific method and he's one of the worst baddies Alex has fought. No Freudian Excuse or redeeming qualities at all.

Conclusion?

See above. I think he counts.

Alright, then. I'll talk about another person I have in mind later.

edited 21st Sep '14 8:12:13 PM by Scraggle

I fail to see how this has any impact on his qualification either way.

I've seen The Flight Of Dragons, and don't have a problem with Bryagh counting, so long as we think he meets the heinous standard.

Razim sounds like an easy keep.

I'd agree.

Also, I was wondering how evil Zemo is in this story arc if at all- I know that at times he's been an Anti-Villain close to a Heel–Face Turn (at least in his own mind), and so I just wanted to clarify if Zemo is Eviler than Thou here or (in keeping with some of his previous depictions) he's less evil than Arcade, although more competent.

edited 21st Sep '14 8:55:28 PM by Hodor

Yes for Bryagh and the Alex Rider example

Zemo is way more competent than Arcade, but less evil. He seems slightly contemptuous of what Arcade pulled on the kids.

Yeah, Razim sounds worse than I remember.

While we are on the subject of Alex rider, I am thinking of a character from Russian Roulett, a spinoff focused on Yassen Gregoravich. I will tell you all about the character tomorrow and we can discuss him and Razim then.

And you have two from me, Scraggle, since we talked about them on another site.

Razim seems like an easy Maybe not as major as the other two, but seems like an extreme sadist.

"Margot" and Takaoka submitted. What about Hades?
As for Arcade, the Nazi Zemo is slightly contemptuous of what Arcade did? That's a point for counting Arcade

edited 22nd Sep '14 2:10:10 AM by ACW

Two for both of Scraggle's examples.

One thing I'd like to add for Razim is that during SCORPIA'S board meeting, he manipulates Kroll, one of his colleagues, into drawing a pistol on his boss, by implying that Kroll should be some sort of Sacrificial Lion. In the ensuing confrontation, Kroll gets shot when a sniper, employed by his boss, Kurst (?), intervenes. The implication is that Razim joyfully sacrificed one of his "friends" by manipulating him into a position where he threatened to harm the rest of the board. Don't know if that helps, but I'm just throwing it out there.

edited 22nd Sep '14 4:21:30 AM by captainmarkle

The character from Russian Roulette I wanted to propose is Vladimir Sharkovski.

Sharkovski is a crime boss who kidnaps a young Yassen and forces him to play a game of.. well you know. Yassen has to put the gun in his mouth too. Yassen wins so Sharkovskui makes him his slave, forcing him to call him "sir" and making him do all sorts of humiliating tasks. He forces Yassen to be his taste tester for poision and allows his son to bully him (said bullying includes jabbing him in the side with a fork). When Yassen tries to escape, his men beat him and he tells him that if he tries it again he will kill him. It later turns out that Sharkovski was responsible for the bombing that killed Yassen's parents and destroyed his village. The only possible redeeming quality would be love for his son. He does give his son good education but they are not seen together that much. I have to go to school. We will talk more later.