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
As bad s he is, I'm wndriug I the Joker from the Arkham games still counts after his Alas, Poor Villain death. I know he has a big rapseet, but it does not take much to disqualify.
Also, the Ace Attorney wiki claims Von Karma is friends with someone named Ernest Amano, is this true?
jjj
It's never mentioned in the game. I don't know about side materials.
I don't believe Amano and von Karma ever interacted on screen.
Yes, Joker counts and so does Kruger. Kruger kills a ship full of innocent women and children, very clearly enjoys his work in slaughtering people, gets creepily rape-y with the heroine and threatens to make certain her daughter dies because she rejected him. She also stabs his superior in the neck when she badmouths him while declaring he'll become President to give Elysium the 'President it deserves' after he declares he's the one who 'does the hangin'.'
edited 18th Dec '14 6:03:26 AM by Lightysnake
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Gunning down hostages would count.
Interesting point about Arkham!Joker though...
Comic!Robotnik has this:
- Even Evil Has Standards: Yes, that may be difficult to comprehend for this particular character, but it did happen once. He did not take it kindly when he figured out A.D.A.M. had gone rogue, and tried to end him. That did not stop him, though.
I'll tweak Sonic this weekend and submit Monday. Here's the modified Hard Target writeup:
- Hard Target: Emil Fouchon is a libertarian madman who runs a hunting ring that aims to break what he describes as the government's monopoly on murder. Using a man named Randal Po to recruit homeless veterans, Fouchon and his henchman, Pik Van Cleaf, offer them thousands of dollars if they can survive being hunted by Fouchon's clients—an offer Fouchon has no intention of fullfilling. During the film's opening scenes, Fouchon, Van Cleaf and their client (with help from a team of bikers and huntsmen) run down and murder Douglas Binder. When Douglas's daughter, Natasha, comes looking for him, in alliance with veteran Chance Boudreaux, Fouchon has Randal beaten and mutilated for selecting a man with a family-not out of any moral qualms, but because of the unwanted attention-then chooses Chance's friend Elijah Roper as the target of the next hunt. When the client proves unwilling to finish Elijah, Fouchon kills the client, then has Van Cleaf gun down Elijah in the street. Deciding to move to the next town, Fouchon has Van Cleaf kill Randal, and the coroner they were paying to fake causes of death. When Chance and Natasha get involved, Fouchon decides that they have to die as well, and brings in a number of clients who owe him favours. When Chance uses a rattlesnake to poison one of these men, Fouchon stomps him to death while ranting about how he should "die quieter." When Chance's uncle sets another of his men on fire, Fouchon kills the man himself. As the film approaches its climax, Fouchon, with all of his men dead, stabs Chance's uncle with an arrow, takes Natasha hostage, and finally tries to beat Chance to death with a burning two-by-four.
edited 18th Dec '14 6:15:38 AM by ACW
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
So that's three votes for Concannon against none. Should we get a few more or should I just write him up not.
Also, what was our conclusion on Peter from The Lost Boys ? I brought him up like a month ago but he's kind of a loose end. I remember him getting two votes to none though.
"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."
@ 33385 Ambar Sonof Deshar, well regardless of the quality of the story, this new character still bares watching.
I will withhold judgement till this story comes out, but I do remember DC doing something similar with Toyman in the 90s, trying to turn him into some sort of evil child killing psychopath and everyone seemed to hate that. So they retconned it away, blamed it on a defective Toyman robot and made the real Toyman into some sort of Knight Templar who wanted to protect children from the callousness of adults, through any means necessary. Then the reboot happened, so all of that was wiped away. 90s Toyman seems like a failed attempt to create a monster and bringing in subject matter that a lot of people felt was too dark for Superman.
Also it seems like the New 52 Brainiac isn't a monster like his past counterparts, so maybe Pak sees an opening that can be filled for with some new "pure evil" enemy for Supes.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Frankly I think the issue with 90s Toyman was that they "fixed" the wrong thing. The problem with Toyman has always been his threat level, not how evil he is. Turning him into a pedophile made him more disgusting, but it didn't do anything about the fact that he was a pushover and meant Superman looked really incompetent when he couldn't stop him from hurting kids.
Frankly, I think people don't give Superman stories enough credit for being able to handle so-called "dark" themes. Yeah, it's not Batman—there's no gothic city or brooding antihero—but that's never stopped Superman's villains from doing some very, very awful things. All you have to do is look at Brainiac, or Mongul, or even Luthor's rapsheet. Hell, Reactron, a Supergirl villain, managed to be a Domestic Abuser, a would-be rapist, a mass murderer, a war criminal, and died adding genocide to his list of crimes.
The thing with giving Brainiac redeeming qualities is one of my big complaints about New 52!Superman for the record. I concur that the new character is probably worth watching for, and quality of story generally does not matter (unless it's so bad that we can safely bank on it being retconned away); I just think creating the character in the first place is both missing the point and giving into a moronic trend.
Speaking of Archie Comics' Eggman, I'm not sure that he qualifies. I'm not super familiar with the comics, but I did happen to read a few that made me question his inclusion. Basically from what I've gathered, he created two A.I.'s which considered him their father, "M" and "A.D.A.M.". At some point, A.D.A.M. went rouge and framed M for betraying Eggman
◊, and Eggman had her self-destruct for it
◊. At the time he just seemed angry, but later, he has this interaction with Sonic
◊ where he shows regret over M's death. I've read further on, and there's no indication that this was not genuine. Later, when he's alone with A.D.A.M. he says that it had been a "trying day".
edited 18th Dec '14 9:13:02 AM by Camberf
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
That may be the Even Evil Has Standards bit I mentioned above.
Is it possible for a CM to be the subject of an Alas, Poor Villain? Lighty and I already discussed Ultimate Red Skull, but Arkham!Joker?
![[nja]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/user_ninja_2074.png "[nja]"){kind=small}
Oh, but that can't be as bad as giving Carnage redeeming qualities.
edited 18th Dec '14 10:07:07 AM by ACW
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
I don't think that was until later. Eggman didn't know that A.D.A.M. had gone rouge at the time.
Heh, well if gunning down hostages is all it takes, then any evil villain could be a CM.
It wasn't hostages, it was a bunch of men, women and children in a shuttle attempting to get to Elysium, some of whom were desperate to save their own lives and loved ones.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
So they weren't even a threat to him, he just shot them For the Evulz?
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Kruger worked as an operative for Elysium's elites. He did it due to request.
He highly enjoys his work, though.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Seems to be a keeper to me.
Now, what about Joker's Alas, Poor Villain death? Couldn't find anything in the discussion, and I remember you saying Ultimate!Skull was probably just trying to mess with Cap (ditto Jimmy O), but this seems different...
edited 18th Dec '14 12:27:12 PM by ACW
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
I don't recall Arkham!Joker's death having anything that would disqualify a CM.
If everyone were normal, the world would be a dull place. Like reality television.
I think Arkham!Joker's death is supposed to be sad on Batman's part, not Joker's. What with the whole "Even after everything you've done, I would have saved you".
I have to admit, I'm curious about this also. The Arkham!Joker does absolutely nothing redeemable or sympathetic in his final moments. However, the game seems to be trying to force the player to accept that the death of this unrepentant mass-murdering sadist is a bad thing. Batman is more broken up about it than about Talia's death, whom the Joker himself just killed. Plus the atmosphere and music just screams, "Feel sad, damnit!" Although, an argument could be made that this tone is meant to reflect Batman's mental state more than it's meant to represent how we, the players, are supposed to feel... though what this says about Batman, I have no idea, as he carries over this angst even into the post-main campaign DLC.
EDIT: Heh, touche.
edited 18th Dec '14 1:34:20 PM by OccasionalExister
So, yeah, it changes nothing about his CM status, but now has me questioning what the developers were thinking when they wrote that scene.
If everyone were normal, the world would be a dull place. Like reality television.
I think the overall scene was supposed to be a tribute to Mark Hamill, since this would be his last time playing the Joker.
But they do address some of those issues in the tie-in comic Arkham City End Game For example, Gordon says "I know you feel guilty for what happened to him. Don't"
edited 18th Dec '14 2:01:35 PM by TVRulezAgain
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
That's a relief. Though, the developers could've been harkening back to The Killing Joke, where one feels (I did anyway) sympathy for Joker.
As for Archie!Robotnik, that piece of information makes it very easy for a ![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_down_emoticon_3571.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
Don't see any reason to remove Arkham!Joker's CM status, though. Hard to say exactly why Batman feels sorry for him, though.
edited 18th Dec '14 3:07:34 PM by Irene
Batman gets sad whenever anyone dies on his watch, just to note.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
I believe it's Eggman, not Robotnik (yes, I know it's confusing. I think the former's like the alternate-universe of the latter or something).
Eh, ok, for Elysium, should Kruger qualify? For one, he isn't outwardly sadistic (he may enjoy it, but no Evil Laugh, Slasher Smile, Psychotic Smirk etc.). His worst act is (quickly) gunning down some innocent hostages, no torture or anything (he did stab a good guy's hand, but only because he got in his way). And... that's about it. The part saying he beat a woman was about 2-3 punches to the face (no visible blood, maybe a mild bruise but nothing close to a black eye). Oh, and The Caligula thing was only implied at best, like saying "now I'm in charge" or something of that sort.