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
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
We discussed her, and decided her caring for Agnes was genuine enough that she didn't count.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Lighty, did you ever write up Prospero?
I retracted the nomination it upon a second viewing. He does commit one good deed when he has a child spared. A near keep, but alas.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
You mean this?
Yes, a second viewing changed my opinion. Exister will back me up
Lizzid people!
That doesn't sound like a redeeming trait.
Lost in Space
I keep meaning to do that writeup on Lord Nidrus Hellebore. I'll get to it tonight, I hope.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Have Mephisto and Felix been wrapped up?
![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_down_emoticon_3571.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
On Blangis. He's revolting but so's everybody else. Given that Lightysnake's a lot more liberal than I am, if he's saying nobody stands out enough to count, I'm inclined to believe him.
Also, if memory serves, Blangis has redeeming qualities and tries to save one of the boys.
The most shocking thing about this statement is that anyone in a de Sade work has redeeming qualities.
The Other Wiki backs me up. For The Duke's profile: "Shows loving feelings for the male victim Rino and allows him to live at the end."
Lost in Space
From Tad Williams' The War of the Flowers: Lord Nidrus Hellebore
Who is Hellebore? What has he done?
Nidrus Hellebore is the head of the Seven Families of the land of Faerie, a parallel universe to our own that is ruled by the laws of magic rather than of science. Hellebore realized long ago that the gradual decline of superstition on Earth was sapping Faerie of the power it needed. He executed a secret plan to usurp rulership from Queen Titania and King Oberon so that he could enact a "scientific" approach to magic in apparent imitation of the mortal world. This approach involves draining fairies of their power in great plants in order to supply the rest with energy.
He recognized that this would be a stopgap only, so his ultimate plan is to open a portal between the two worlds (using a human changeling specifically raised for the purpose) to allow Old Night, the resident Eldritch Abomination containing all the horrors in existence, to pour into the mortal world. The resulting chaos and destruction will devolve human society to the Dark Ages and provoke a new wave of superstition to power Faerie.
As part of his plan, he ruthlessly manipulates the heads of the Seven Families under the guise of adopting his "scientific magic". He uses all the tools of a dictator: labor camps, secret police, betrayal, and murder. When he's ready to cement his rule, he arranges for all those who oppose him to be together at a summit and then unleashes dragons to attack the City, sowing massive destruction. When his co-conspirator's daughter Poppy opposes him in favor of the protagonist, Theo, he arranges for her to be imprisoned and tortured. Lastly, his plan requires that Theo's very soul be fed to Old Night as part of the exchange.
Oh, and he also holds the goblins of Faerie (whose hat is absolute obedience to the letter of an agreement) in virtual slavery thanks to a binding pact whose terms he deliberately broke. When a goblin makes a Heroic Sacrifice in order to sever the pact and start a revolution, Hellebore sends forces to brutally quell it in a manner that would make any Real Life autocrat proud.
Is he heinous by the standards of the story?
Hellebore is unquestionably heinous: in the end even the other fairy lords are shocked to discover his true plans. He murders, tortures, and betrays with no remorse and even a sense of satisfaction. His only true allies are his son, Anton, who has become a sadistic psychopath in unthinking imitation of his father, and the Terrible Child, Theo's mortal changeling twin, who was raised to be the channel for unleashing Old Night (while Theo is the key) and who is, if anything, more purely evil than Hellebore himself.
Any Freudian Excuse or other mitigating factors?
The only mitigating factor is that Hellebore unquestioningly believes that his actions are necessary to save Faerie from extinction due to waning human superstition. His plan is designed to reopen that channel of power, at any cost, and certainly without any regard for the lives (human or fairy) destroyed in the process.
In summary, I believe that his motivation is sufficient to qualify him as a Well-Intentioned Extremist despite actions that are more than heinous enough to meet the Complete Monster standard.
edited 22nd Oct '14 11:16:04 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Wait, does he want to save it out of goodness or because he wants to rule it? The latter wouldn't be remotely redeeming.
Lost in Space
He believes himself to have a better vision of the future of Faerie than its rightful king and queen, and he sincerely believes that if he doesn't do anything the realm will eventually be extinguished. The desire for power is clearly present but it is unclear if rulership is his goal or simply a necessary component of the plan.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
As previously mentioned, I don't have access to the book at the moment - and am unlikely to anytime soon - but from everything I remember, you're reading Hellebore's motives backwards. He doesn't want to rule Faerie so he can save it, he wants to save it so he can rule it. Unless there's a passage suggesting otherwise that I'm forgetting?
(Also, much more minor, but IIRC Poppy was actually the daughter of Hellebore's partial co-conspirator Lord Thornapple).
Lost in Space
Bah, you're right. Poppy is Thornapple's daughter, not Hellebore's. I don't have time to dig up the relevant passage, but I recall that it's Hellebore's son, Anton, who tortures her, offscreen.
As for his motivation, I read through the climactic chapter to refresh myself on his Evil Gloating, and it's hard to pin down which of the two motivations is the preeminent one. He clearly enjoys power, but he equally clearly believes his actions to be necessary, and moreover that he is the only person in Faerie who has the vision and will to see the course through. He regards the others as cowards.
edited 20th Oct '14 8:41:41 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
That seems to speak more to being an egomaniac with delusions of grandeur and a messiah-complex moreso than a redeeming quality.
If I'm not mistaken, I owe my friends some writeups:
- Night Of The Generals: Wilhelm Tanz is a fanatic Nazi and an unrepentant Serial Killer who targets women and kills them in sexually depraved manners with knives. Tanz's first known victim to the German army at large is in 1941, initiating an investigation by the far saner and more humane Major Grau. Tanz's brutal tactics with civilians make him stand out among his fellow officers, but Grau is alerted three years later when Tanz kills another woman and frames his driver Hermann for it. When Grau confronts Tanz, having deduced he is the killer, Tanz murders him and frames him as a member of a coup against Hitler. Finally, in the 1960s, Tanz's murder of another woman prompts a reopening of the cold case, finally resulting in Tanz brought to justice.
- Fire & Ice Nekron, the Big Bad of the film is a sorcerer and the ruler of the lands of ice who begins the film by magically expanding the glaciers of his realm to literally crush those who stand in his way while slaughtering their villages with the glaciers and the spears of his sub-human followers. Seeking to force the King of the only resisting kingdom Jarol to submit, Nekron's mother Julianna kidnaps Jarol's daughter and has her brought to Nekron. Nekron angrily informs Julianna, who had expected Nekron to breed with her, if his mother brings him any more 'little sluts,' he'll kill her himself. When Teegra's brother tries to rescue her, Nekron uses his magic to force the prince to kill his comrades before committing suicide while sneering "pigs you are, and like pigs you shall die." When The Hero Larn infiltrates his sanctum, Nekron gets an utter delight of beating the warrior down himself and even has him taken away to be healed and rested so Nekron can enjoy crushing him again.
- Kikokugai: The Cyber Slayer
- Zhang Jaobu is a Serial Rapist and the head of the Triads' prostitution ring. In the course of his job, Jaobu routinely rapes the girls to break them and was one of five Triad leaders who participated in the attempt on hero Kong Taolun's life, and then the gang-rape of his sister. After this, Jaobu's group took said sister Ruili to an infamous scientist and split her soul amongst five androids. Jaobu keeps one that he regularly rapes and prostitutes to wealthy clients while thinking that the real fear from the Ruili-bot is what makes it enjoyable.
- Zhu Shaoyan, known as The Demon Empress, is another of the five who participated in Taolun's attempted murder and the gang rape of Ruili. Shaoyan is a Serial Rapist and Serial Killer herself who has modified her cyborg body to rape women with the 'right equipment' and to tear her victims apart after. With her own personal Ruili-bot, Shaoyan routinely rapes and tortures her while introducing games to force the other woman to pleasure her within a certain timeframe. Failure to do so will result in horrible torture and abuse. At times, Shaoyan is simply so absorbed in her own thoughts she damages Ruili anyways. Thinking bakc to Taolun, Shaoyan only sneers "That bastard was so smug... But I broke his precious little sister with my own two hands!"
edited 20th Oct '14 9:07:25 PM by Lightysnake
Lost in Space
But when he's dead and the spell broken, Faerie loses its slave-generated power and it is clear that it will, eventually, fade as he predicted. So he's a correct egomaniac.
Edit: Remember, it doesn't matter whether the guy is in it for egomania or actually wants to save lives. The definition of a Well-Intentioned Extremist is, "A villain who has an overall goal which the heroes can appreciate in principle, but whose methods of pursuing said goal (such as mass murder) are problematic; despite any sympathy they may have with his cause, the heroes have no choice but to stop him."
Everyone in the story realizes that Faerie is in trouble if it doesn't find a way to stop relying on Earth for power (or restore said power); they just don't like how Hellebore has decided to solve the problem.
edited 20th Oct '14 9:08:24 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Except (again, if I recall correctly) it's indicated that while humans losing their belief in superstition was part of what was causing the magic to fade, Faerie had also been thrown out of balance in the first place by the imprisonment of the king and queen - and it was implied that while Hellebore's system stopped worked when they were freed, over time magic might come to a healthier equilibrium, or something like that. The fade was a very gradual thing, whereas the need for the "power plants" to exist in order to have magic work at all was the direct result of Hellebore's actions.
edited 20th Oct '14 9:10:31 PM by nrjxll
Lost in Space
That part of the story is not well explained, contained as it is in the final chapter and mixed in with a lot of other exposition. While Hellebore had to imprison Oberon and Titania in order to work his magic after they were weakened in a war with giants, and he lied and convinced the other Fairy Lords that they were dead, nobody seems to argue with the crux of his belief.
It could be interpreted that even the fading was a lie designed to help him usurp power, but I am at a loss to cite any specific passage confirming this. The fact of it seems to be assumed by just about all the characters. It is certainly true that imprisoning the king and queen caused things to become unstable enough that Hellebore could successfully advance his "scientific magic" ideas, which he learned by studying humans.
edited 20th Oct '14 9:15:59 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
being correct doesn't make him less of a self-serving tyrant, nor does it make him less of a monster.
You're also not touching upon the important parts of a Well Intentioned Extremist: the genuine devotion to their cause and going too far in pursuit of it. Someone in it for themselves primarily is not, by definition, a well intentioned extremist. They don't even have good intent.
It absolutely matters what he's in it for. Intent and belief is at the core of a CM. Saving a land or people to rule it and saving a land for the sake of caring about it are very different things. It's why Apocalypse and the Red Skull are complete monsters, but Magneto isn't.
Taken to its extreme, that definition would preclude almost anyone from counting. Sauron, for instance, would have the goal of creating a perfectly ordered world. Of course, he would do so by brutally subjugating and/or exterminating everyone else in it, with the added bonus of doing it solely out of a desire to rule.
So, I would say that his intentions in what he does are not only relevant, they are the absolute crux of whether he is a CM or not.
The closest and most direct comparison I can make is Nimue from Hellboy. The Fae and all like them are fading, and she is revived to lead them and save them from extinction. Nimue's actions would have the result of doing so, but she would exterminate humankind, brutally subjugate the Fae under her banner and cause untold amounts of death and destruction. She also cares not a whit for the people she's supposed to lead.
edited 20th Oct '14 9:17:16 PM by Lightysnake
Lost in Space
Valid points. Does anyone else have an opinion?
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Lord Nidrus Hellebore
Has anyone ever brought up Mrs. Lenz from the 2006 version of Black Christmas? She's the mother of the movie's villain, Billy. She abuses him because of a condition he was born with that causes his skin to be yellow. She murder's Billy's father (a positive influence in Billy's life), and when she realizes that Billy witnessed her crime, she locks him up in the attic and keeps him there for years. When she cannot get pregnant with her new lover, she rapes Billy (who is 12 at the time) and becomes pregnant with his child. She gives birth to a girl named Agnes. Later, Billy disfigures Agnes and kills Mrs. Lenz and her lover. The antagonists of the movie are Billy and Agnes, but everything really comes back to Mrs. Lenz. She's responsible for practically everything that happens, directly or indirectly. Granted, I'm not sure how that stacks up against two slasher film villains, but minor villains who have a hand in causing the main villain's villainy have counted before (Dracula from Blacula).
edited 20th Oct '14 10:04:41 AM by Pwnisher248