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}
Nowhere near. He's at his worse in the manga.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Okay, try it now.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
@ ACW: reiterating my question from #37653 for Geiger.
Also for the Timecop write-up, please make it "He meets up with Al Capone in 1928 after previously having made him boss, and forces Capone back into his service". Assisting Scarface is in Pascoe's backstory, not in the story proper. We do see the result, but the tense is incorrect.
Ok, I have a new candidate: Frank from the sci-fi action Retroactive.
Who is Frank? What has he done?
The story is pretty convoluted due to time travel, so bear with me. The movie takes place in western Texas, where a scientist named Brian has developed a machine that allows Mental Time Travel and can send people back in time 20 minutes or more. Karen is a disgraced female cop from Chicago whose car breaks down when she's picked up by Frank, a boisterous thug (played by Jim Belushi of all people) and his quiet and obviously mistreated wife Rayanne. At a nearby gas station the shopkeeper, whom Frank seems to be familiar with, gives Frank photos which reveal that his wife is cheating on him with a Mexican tow truck driver from the same area. Frank being a racist, this angers him even more. Frank kills his wife and chases down Karen before she seeks refuge in Brian's lab and is accidentally transported back in time. She tries to Set Right What Once Went Wrong, but only ends up making things worse with subsequent loops, as Frank goes on a homicidal rampage. Throughout the various loops Frank kills his wife, kills her lover, tries to kill Karen, kills the local Sheriff, kills a family of three, takes the kid hostage and threatens to kill the boy, mocks Karen when she couldn't save the kid in a later loop, and tries to use the time machine so he can go back through multiple loops and kill Brian and Karen several times over.
Heinous by the standards of the story?
He's by far the worst character. The only other real villain is the shopkeeper at the gas station, who is Frank's accomplice. He tries to kill Karen at least once, but aside from that he's pretty much the junior partner in Frank's rampage.
Freudian Excuse or redeeming traits?
We learn some minor details of his past, but no real backstory is provided. His anger over his wife cheating on him is also not played as an excuse; he's a Domestic Abuser, kills her in most temporal loops, and it's not nearly enough to account for the scale of his atrocities. He also doesn't seem to care for his accomplice; he doesn't even react to his death when Karen kills him in one loop, and it's implied that he personally killed him in the final one.
Conclusion
Keep.
edited 28th Mar '15 2:10:49 PM by Morgenthaler
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Yes I did. And the fact that he's a Domestic Abuser only solidifies my ![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
for Frank.
Why does he try to kill Karen? Just because she's a witness? What about the sheriff and the family of three?
edited 28th Mar '15 2:38:50 PM by bobg
jjj
Pretty much to kill any eyewitnesses. When Karen is transported back through time she ends up in the same place each time, with Frank and his wife in his car. Karen's attempts to rescue the wife turn into a huge clusterfuck, as Frank kills anyone she tries to warn about him or ask for help. For instance, he kills the Sheriff when they all end up in a Mexican Standoff.
edited 28th Mar '15 2:57:04 PM by Morgenthaler
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"
I remember that he drinks Australian beer because it reminds him his father who left him when he was 10'. Is that enough of a Freudian Excuse ?
No way.
Frank
Frank. And that is a horrid freudian excuse. Like, just wow. Not even close to buyable to save this guy from the trope.
Frank sounds like Joe if he was racist in addition to being abusive to his spouse and kids. Or Jeff played even worse outside of Family Guy. Keep.
I'm trying to think of a film I might have seen with a Complete Monster in it, maybe the film The Changeling? I saw it but have a very vague memory of it and don't even know if the film has an example.
Also, I know it's a very crapsack world, but does anyone from District 9 count? A lot of people are murderously racist including the protagonist.
All three villains are listed, though I have my doubts about the Corrupt Corporate Executive and Obesandjo. Koobus is a more firm keep, I think.
Klavice, are you going to stop delving into previously discussed issues soon?
Also, guys...can e finish up Mother Gothel? I need to say...this isn't fair. Someone does what they're supposed to and brings an example, the proper response isn't 'constantly ignore it.'
edited 28th Mar '15 6:27:12 PM by Lightysnake
Don't you already have 4 votes?
District 9 I can understand being discussed but not Changeling. It's a movie with Angelina Jolie in it, and that's pretty much all I remember. If it has been discussed, I didn't see it in any of the results. And plus, the YMMV page doesn't have the writeup.
"Complete Monster: Gordon Northcott is a serial kidnapper, abuser, and murderer of as many as 20 young boys. And the movie left out a lot of details about his real life crimes."
Looks like a keeper, but this writeup just says he murders 20 boys. It doesn't say anything about him doing it for fun, or even how he murders the boys. It's pretty much a ZCE.
Lost in Space
![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_down_emoticon_3571.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
on Mother Goethel or however it's spelled. Bog-standard generic evil Disney villain, and she is at worst guilty of cruelty to a child and a single attempted murder. She doesn't even meet the minimum heinousness standard.
edited 28th Mar '15 9:03:42 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Northcott doesn't count. He's clearly mentally ill in a debilitating way and might have even cared for one of the boys.
I'm just curious, Fighteer, are you voting against the movie one, or the fan media one Ek has been proposing? EDIT: Ah, the moving one then. Not the one Ek is proposing.
edited 28th Mar '15 9:05:39 PM by Lightysnake
Very well, can I remove him in that case?
The Mother Gothel I keep suggesting is not the Disney version. I've said that every time I posted on her.
She is from the comic book Rapunzel's Revenge. The only relation is that they're both based on the same fairy tale.
edited 28th Mar '15 9:52:10 PM by Ekimmak
If everyone were normal, the world would be a dull place. Like reality television.
I will give a to Frank and a to Spade.
@ AWC, perhaps we could give Punisher his own subpage, especially if the regular Marvel comics page gets too big. I'm not sure if any other 616 Punisher villains count, Punisher tends to kill them after one or two stories, so it can be hard for them to stack up with other street level Marvel villains. Also Punsiher's 616 villains are usually not as nasty as the Max villains, given that Max has more creative freedom to portray nasty villains. Ennis generally wrote 616 Punsiher in a more light hearted way, for example. Samuel Smith stood out for me, given the epic scope of his plans. Jigsaw is 616 Punisher's main villain and the writers go from writing as a legitimate threat to a joke all the time. Rosalie Carbone was another main villain of Punisher from the 90s, but she was an Mafia Princess who became a crime boss after Punisher killed her father, she cared about her family and I don't remember her being that evil. There were Psycho for Hire villains like Sniper and Saracen, but Sniper usualy just followed other people's orders and Saracen was pretty nasty, but he refused to cheat on his wife, which shows some moral standards and shows that he likely cares about her.
edited 28th Mar '15 9:28:52 PM by Overlord
I've been reading up on Cybersix, a Canadian cartoon based off a Argentinian comic book and I think I might have found a candidate in Von Reitcher. Especially in the comic. For one, as the name clearly shows, he is a neo nazi that isn't played for laughs in any way. His son Jose is also responsible for a number of atrocities like raping the main heroine, though that was ordered by his father. Von Reitcher wants to enslave the world (or kill everyone in it) whatever works. So he orders his Child Prodigy of a son Jose to create monster after monster to destroy the world. Jose is a creepy child with seemingly no redeeming qualities except that he answers to his father who is all but implied to be abusive. This is not like Ghetsis in that Von Reitcher fails the heinous standard. Reitcher passes with flying colors and then some. He's The Joker if he was serious and a nazI to give a comparison. He has quite the body count if you count the murders of several innocent civilians and his son raping Cybersix. It's implied that he raped his son too, which is why Jose raped our heroine. Though Jose's abuse is implied. He could very well qualify as he kills his father just to take over his army of hell spawns.
It's basically a female Argentinian version of Batman.
edited 28th Mar '15 10:04:18 PM by Klavice
Lost in Space
Oh, sorry. Well, then I have no input on Gothel, except to reiterate that I loathe the idea of CMs in fanworks on general principle.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
I'm not sure it's a fanwork based on the Disney version. From what Wikipedia says, the original witch from the fairy tale was named Gothel.
To be fair, the book is pretty obscure. Finding it was extremely hard, so that I'm the only person here who knows anything about it isn't an entire surprise. If nobody has questions, I'll write up an entry and see what it's like.
If everyone were normal, the world would be a dull place. Like reality television.
I watched all of Cybersix. Easy on the cartoon one. Never saw the Comic, but being worse than even the already horrific cartoon one? Easy thumbs up too.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Cybersix seems like a . That might not be a bad idea.
