Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

@Irrose: Yes, all of them have fewer than three examples and were therefore moved back to the sandbox with the links removed from there too. Speaking of, can we get back to this for now?

edited 14th Sep '12 10:06:38 AM by EarlOfSandvich

@Ambar - wait, was the ring a sex-trafficking ring that had sucked in an undercover agent? If so, I've actually seen that episode recently. If not, I'll watch it, but based on what you're saying, and what I recall of it, I'd definitely say keep, especially since Lucy is clearly in control of the whole ring, and is not acting on the whims of others in her ring.

Yes that's who we're talking about. She's not actually on the list yet, but I was considering adding her.

First, addressing things after a night spent relaxing at home with my wife...

@3190 Whoa, you opened a can of worms there. Anyhow, Largo did an excellent job breaking all of that down in @3192. I agree with all of Largo's recommendations.

@3194 Wait... what? Ben10 getting a page? I don't even think anything from the show deserves an entry (way too much Offscreen Villainy to qualify even Vilgax). There are no entries for it under Monster.Western Animation, and I think the entry on the show's YMMV page should be cut completely.

@3199 Well, I thought about it, and a good chunk of my posts these days end up saying it anyways. Besides, nobody but me understood my old signature, which was in part because my avatar is an old injoke that nobody around would get anyhow.

Anyhow, since you vouched for Heavy Rain, I'm fine with keeping.

@3200 You make a very convincing argument. Admittedly, it helps that the thread's Gundam expert agrees with your opinion in @3214, but credit is due for an excellent argument for removal. You have my vote to cut.

@3204 I could conceivably see a situation in which someone who said Then Let Me Be Evil would qualify, but as @3205 states, it'd be under a pretty narrow set of qualifiers. I think Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds or Well-Intentioned Extremist would be much more likely to happen.

@3206 The problem is that said drama CD is an alternate continuity. We cover that in the FAQ as well - if your argument applies to an alternate continuity, they can go on... but only for the continuity that it applies. What happens in that drama CD does not apply to the main game, no matter how similar a character might act to any other continuity.

@3209 Wait... what? First off, Meat Boy's girlfriend is Bandage Girl, not Garbage Girl. Second, while Dr. Fetus Would Hit a Girl, that falls under Jerkass, not Complete Monster. Finally, they never establish just how the evil fetus was created - that could just as easily be Meat Boy's kid in there. Dun dun DUNNNNN!

So no, I wouldn't count Dr. Fetus at all. Not heinous enough.

@3218 Mostly agree, but with a few comments:

Yes, we did decide that Split Personality cases would only count if literally every personality counted. You cannot merely have one count (relatedly, this means I have to cut Sensui of Yu Yu Hakusho from Monster.Anime And Manga, for the same reason). It's all or nothing (I disagree with this, but I was outvoted).

You also should explain just what an "Unsub" is on the page for those of us who don't watch the show.

On the entry for The Reaper, the supposition about sexual stuff is completely unnecessary and should be cut when the entry is consolidated. The line about an In-Universe acknowledgement should also be cut; that's You Monster! instead.

I'm inclined to cut Danny Murphy - as nasty as it is to kill a child that way, he doesn't strike me as heinous as some of the other examples.

I'm also inclined to cut the grandmother - while that is horribly abusive, it doesn't sound as bad as the serial rapists that you recommend cutting, and it doesn't sound like it was her intention to create a serial killer.

Beyond that, agree with your recommendations.

Anyhow, more thoughts on the Video Games sandbox:

I discussed AM from I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream back in @1359. I stand by my vote to cut.

Hanne Lichthammer of Clive Barker's Jericho should be cut - it's based totally on biography detailed in the game and the entry even admits that the character doesn't do any of that on-screen.

For Rugal of King Of Fighters' just how much of that is backstory, and how much is done on-screen? I'm inclined to cut unless much of that is shown.

I would also cut Zant of The Legend Of Zelda Twilight Princess, because Majora sets the bar for the series by trying to kill all of Termina for fun. Zant's MO of subjugation and transformation is much less evil. Also, it's all Ganon's fault, again, anyhow. Majora stands apart as the one villain who is doing evil for his own sake and not under Ganon's thumb in any way.

For similar reasons, cut Odie Oldbright from Live A Live. Those actions are not nearly so bad as the terrible deaths of the villains of the Flow chapter, described below (who don't qualify since they're a group). Plus, as the game reveals, the various incarnations of Odio come down to a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, so I'd vote to cut the entirety of the example.

How much of the Lost Odyssey example is on-screen? Looks like it might be Offscreen Villainy.

I agree about Ridley from Metroid - cut from the Video Game page, move to Anime and Manga.

For Okami, Yami should be cut, since all it does is blot out the sun by existing. It's not even clearly sentient. Ninetails needs some expansion, as killing Rao happened offscreen but they gloss over the effects of the attempt on Himiko (which could potentially sink the Dragon Palace and kill all the inhabitants).

That's what I have for now.

EDIT: @3226 Being pushy isn't going to get anyone anywhere. You can't just make people respond to you - they have just as much right to talk about the example that they're focused on and ignore your request as you have to ignore their request and focus on yours.

edited 14th Sep '12 10:55:47 AM by 32_Footsteps

Thanks for pointing out that typo (I did mean Bandage all along and somehow I keep thinking that... damn... well, it only happened once though I caught myself making that error though missing that first moment)... and I guess you may have a point here...

Anyways, the way it seems, guess I'll leave here awhile and cool off... Guess I've been frustrated about the need to fix the damn page...

edited 14th Sep '12 11:42:58 AM by EarlOfSandvich

I think we should cut the Thalmor as a whole and list individuals instead. Ancano actively tried to destroy he world just to prove he could and we witness this. The Thalmor leader (I believe her name is Elenwyn) is never shown doing stuff onscreen.

Also, Grelod the Kind should be cut. We never actually see her abuse any of the orphans, we just hear her spurt insults. Even if she did do these things onscreen, it pales when you compare it to, oh say, pretending to be a loan shark just so you can use your victims as bait so you can bring rich folks to hunt them down for sport.

Also the Dragon Priest that killed children. Again it's Offscreen Villainy.

Lastly, Vasha. once again it's Offscreen Villainy, and he didn't even strike me a Complete Monster evn if Offscreen Villainy counted.

Back.

Just made an edit request for a mod to transfer the Ridley example over to Anime and Manga (although it is already bloated though I won't discuss it yet). I do agree on the grounds of the example explicitly referring to the manga.

Again, my apologies for anyone who felt I was being pushy here. I was hoping to help although I don't really know much of the examples well to pass judgment. So yeah, guess I was pushy...

edited 14th Sep '12 12:20:08 PM by EarlOfSandvich

You don't really have to know the examples that well to pass judgement. All you really have to do is be able to look at the example and see if it meets the criteria.

EDIT: Speaking of Then Let Me Be Evil, there was an unnecessary link to this trope on the page. "They can't convince everybody they're not a Complete Monster." I changed it to "They can't convince everybody they're not a monster." Same flavour and intent without trope abuse.

Funny thing—a long time ago we had a discussion about what purpose a CM can serve in a story, with some people arguing that the presence of one hurts most works. The Zanald/Decil made me think of in Gundam AGE the opposite has happened. They got rid of their worst CM less than halfway through, and ever since then, have been scrambling to find someone to fill his shoes. Without him there, every other villain has had to become a far greater bastard, just to make their side of the war feel like the bad guys.

edited 14th Sep '12 12:31:50 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

double post. blanked

edited 14th Sep '12 12:31:35 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Looking through the sandbox again, and at a corresponding wiki, I'm not fully sure about including Oni. The Street Fighter Wiki I saw did say that he basically is^note an alternate version of Akuma where the Satsui no Hadou consumes him and throws out all semblance of humanity and honor (unless alternate versions of a character do count). Bison... I dunno. His story is All There in the Manual and his actions really are atrocious, but could this be enough? If anything, both entries better writing if they are to stay.

edited 14th Sep '12 2:58:00 PM by EarlOfSandvich

@3231: Ancano was trying to destroy the world? I don't doubt you it's just that I've heard this said multiple times, but when I played through that questline I don't remember finding proof of that. I agree with you on axing Grelod the Kind. She's abusive but it takes a lot more than that to meet the heinous requirement in The Elder Scrolls. Also agree with axing the Dragon Priests for Offscreen Villainy.

@3229: I agree with cutting Hanne Lichthammer from Clive Barkers Jericho since her most despicable acts are offscreen. I also agree with cutting Odie Oldbright from Live A Live, for being a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, and the Flow for being a group.

I think AM from I Have No Mouthand I Must Scream, however, should be kept. While he does have a Freudian Excuse for hating humanity (the way he was built makes it so that he’s trapped in his own mind), the sheer lengths of sadism he goes through to torment the five survivors for eternity makes it hard for any excuse to justify his actions. His goal isn’t to Pay Evil unto Evil either, he killed nearly every human on the planet because he hates them, and he’s torturing the five survivors for eternity because it’s fun for him. Most of the people AM torments don’t deserve the tortures he inflicts on them at all. Ellen was just an ordinary woman, but he still sets her up to be raped by a construction of a psychopath from her past. Gorrister is also completely innocent of anything. He blames himself for his wife’s insanity, but it’s revealed that his mother-in-law was the one who caused it, and AM knows it. Yet AM still tries to convince Gorrister to commit suicide, only to rig it so that the man survives and ends up being thrown back into his cage for Electric Torture. It would be an incredible stretch to call Ted evil as he was a conman who just specialized in minor crimes like fraud, and he’s a good person at heart. The only two survivors that theoretically “deserve” their tortures are Benny, who killed several of his soldiers for being weak and Nimdok, but even then the nature of the tortures afflicted on them are so bad that even they’ve become woobies. I mean, Benny is mutated into a mute gorilla-like creature with crippled legs and can’t eat without coughing up blood. AM repaired Benny’s mentally impaired mind just so Benny’s suffering would be more enjoyable to witness. Also, AM isn’t punishing Nimdok for his crimes as a Nazi since he encourages Nimdok to continue the experiments the old man conducted during the holocaust. AM does this because he suffers from Creative Sterility and needs Nimdok’s ideas in his continued torture of the other survivors. AM also doesn’t dislike Nimdok, in fact he considers him a kindred spirit, even as he has the old man constantly burned alive in a cremation chamber. Also some of the game’s endings involve AM getting control of the hidden human colony on the moon, and beginning his cycle of torture all over again with 750 new innocent participants.

EDIT: @3218: I agree with pretty much all your decisions in regards to Criminal Minds.

edited 14th Sep '12 5:11:51 PM by OccasionalExister

That certainly sounds pretty awful.

I have a question regarding Offscreen Villainy. If we don't see the villain doing anything evil, but we see the results of his actions, does that count or not? If it does count, then Emperor Mateus Palamecia from Final Fantasy II should be disqualified. We never see him do anything heinous, but we see just how badly he destroyed people's lives.

• We see the Dreadnought, we don't see it bomb the towns, but we see the aftermath and how the survivors are broken and have abandoned all hope.
• We see the Cyclone, we don't see it finish the towns off, but it's now impossible to ener the towns because there's literally nothing left.
• He poisoned the Dragoons' water supply before the story began. We don't see it happen, but we see that the Dragoons have been driven to near extinction.
• Finally, he took over Hell and Heaven at the same time. We don't see it, but we see Him in His new forms. And He doesn't do anything after He ascends, instead He just waits for you to reach Him for a battle.

So, does seeing the result but not the action count as Offscreen Villainy?

edited 14th Sep '12 6:46:05 PM by GameSorcerer

Unless there's some ambiguity as to whether or not he actually did the things in question, I would say that it does count, because it's not an Informed Attribute. Offscreen Villainy would be, "He killed a billion people but we never see any of them, we just get told about it."

Not that he's a CM, but in Dune Messiah there's a line that Paul Atreides says to one of his associates, where he declares in an offhand manner that he's (well, his armies have) killed billions of people and sterilized some large number of planets. It's not that we aren't supposed to believe he did these things, but the number has no impact. It's too meaningless to count as heinous.

What you're describing with regard to FFII, however, would count towards a tally of villainy because the protagonists directly interact with the results of those actions.

@3238 We cut The Emperor from Final Fantasy II from the page already... he's also not on the game's page (he was deemed not heinous enough). Why do you ask about him?

Anyhow, since it was said before, the results of his actions aren't enough. He has to do the actions.

Also, tangentially related - it's really bad troping to stick a string of potholes together like you did with The Emperor's name. It diminishes all the tropes involved. It's also a pain to click on. That's true all over the site, and I think there's a different Special Efforts thread devoted to removing it from the wiki.

EDIT: The tricky part, I think, is to see what he does in-game. For The Emperor, he summons the Cyclone during play, and while we don't observe him steering it from inside, he made it and controls it. He's responsible for that. He's similarly responsible for the Dreadnought. However, we're only told that he poisoned the wyverns before the game; that doesn't count for him.

edited 14th Sep '12 8:14:21 PM by 32_Footsteps

Comment deleted because I nearly violated the rules.

edited 14th Sep '12 8:39:29 PM by ChaoticQueen

Oh, I did not know Mateus was removed from Monster.Final Fantasy. well don't I feel like an idiot...

At least now I know that results alone aren't enough.

From Dragon Ball Abridged, I say we should axe Super Kami Guru. He says he caused the Great Drought and tricked the green Namekians into slaughtering the albino Namekians, but this is all Offstage Villainy. All we see Guru do is be an asshole and order Nail around, which is nothing compared to Freeza laughing like a maniac as he destroys Planet Vegeta. Even if we did see Guru's actions from the past, he has a few Pet the Dog moments showing he isn't wholly evil. He truly loves his brother and Good Counterpart Slug, and he helped the Earthlings even went he didn't have to. (Sure, he killed himself just because it'd "be a real dick move", but that's beside the point.)

edited 14th Sep '12 8:54:33 PM by ChaoticQueen

Agreed. I also agree on dropping the Thalmor as a whole, Grelod, Vasha, and the Dragon Priest, as well as adding Ancano as an indivdual.

Drop the Thalmor. I don't see Ancano as meriting Complete Monster on the simple basis that he doesn't do anything to justify it. Yes, he gets obsessed with the power of the Eye of Magnus and kills a bunch of people while attempting to claim it for his own, but two-bit power-obsessed villains grow on trees in TES.

It is not established whether he realizes that using it could cause The End of the World as We Know It, but even if he does, we have a trope for that: Omnicidal Maniac.

Ancano isn't even particularly heinous by Elder Scrolls standards, never mind on an absolute scale.

edited 14th Sep '12 9:09:48 PM by Fighteer

Agreed about Super Kami Guru. Also, on the Web Original page, I think not only should the Malachite entry have one hell of a rewrite, Mechakara seems to be disqualified by Malachite's entry.

edited 14th Sep '12 9:08:34 PM by EarlOfSandvich

I'm shocked Super Kami Guru was on the page, given what abridged version's of Vegeta, Dodoria, and Freiza are like. I support axing him.

From what I understand of that particular abridged series, essentially every character, no matter how nasty, is played for laughs. I seriously doubt it's even capable of having CMs, and this guy sure doesn't sound like one regardless.

Cut 'im.

The characters themselves are parodied, but their actions are played seriously. It's absolutely terrifying watching Freeza beat the crap out of Vegeta, for example.

...No offense, but I'm dubious as to whether you're an entirely reliable source.

Like I said, it's moot here as the character in question clearly does not qualify, but for future reference can anyone else who watches the series chime in on this?

edited 15th Sep '12 3:12:33 AM by nrjxll