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
Messenger from another dimension.
I'll agree Kratos is the most heinous character but heinous and evil are not exactly the same thing. The most heinous character might have a tragic backstory. Or love his family (like Kratos). Kratos is the most heinous character but Ares is the most evil. And we do have to give Kratos a credit for redeeming himself.
edited 30th Jul '15 10:08:27 AM by emperors
Welcome to the world of greatest media!
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Vampires DON'T sparkle. I don't know what they are, but the sparkly emos in Twilight are NOT vampires 
.
I removed that Deus Ex entry and linked to the thread.
As the guy who started this God of War debate, I want to apologise. Bottom line seems to be that Ares is an extremely bad dude, but Kratos' actions are worse, even if he actually has some redeeming qualities.
Messenger from another dimension.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
That is pretty much what it looks like it is. Now, any more ![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_down_emoticon_3571.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
votes on Lucifer?
edited 30th Jul '15 10:15:59 AM by emperors
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Caesar
I've always thought it was funny how different gamers reactions are when it comes to choice in Video Games.
Villain Protagonist kills best friend with the player having no say in the matter: "You jerk! I hate your guts! I hope the protagonist dies at the ends of this game!"
Player chooses to kill Villain Protagonist's best friend: "Ha! I am one evil badass! World domination is mine!"
WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!
Lost in Space
The appearance of choice, no matter how trivial, transforms an action that one merely observes into an action that one controls, and our psychology compels us to rationalize the latter.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
@ACW: I could have sworn I removed that. I must have pressed "cancel" instead of "save edit"
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
No worries.
I'm now myself beginning to wonder about Saints Row!Satan...
BTW, where do things stand with Doffy?
edited 30th Jul '15 10:36:15 AM by ACW
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
We've seen some good arguments on both sides and the votes were, IIRC, in favor. I'm still inclined to vote , though, since I'm not sure if he stopped loving his mother, which he clearly did as a kid.
It was 10-11 keep, versus 6 cut
However, given Kaido is now gunning for him, we can give it a few more weeks
@Fighteer: I can think of one clear example of a PC being a Complete Monster: a game called Rapelay. (We no longer have a page on that game, however.)
@the thread:
Psionics: The Next Stage in Human Evolution: Alex Deveraux, the head of Abraxis Biotech. A diagnosed narcissist, sadist and sociopath who orders entire families killed for the sake of convenience, his objective is to gain full control of advancing biotech and encourage the differentiation between haves and have-nots, so that he and his shareholders can become wealthy immortals while the rest of the world drowns in engineered misery. His business plan is literally summed up as making the world sick, then selling people their health back a pill at a time, forever, until they breed more customers and die. He wants to become a powerful Esper as well as an immortal ruler, and is personally why Abraxis Biotech are Playing with Syringes to the extent that their dead subjects are the lucky ones, solely so he can take advantage of the process once it's become perfectly safe.
Now, this is a very nasty Crapsack World, but the heinousness of Abraxis' deeds goes way beyond that of any other organization (there's a lot of Playing with Syringes going on, but Deveraux' plans involve stuff that's a lot worse than the Shop's MKULTRA 2.0), there is absolutely no altruism in their operations (which exist solely to screw the world for profit and immortality), and Alex Deveraux is both the head man of this organization and an exemplar of its lack of values. Everyone else is some brand of Well-Intentioned Extremist; not this guy or his cronies.
Lost in Space
Rapelay, from what little I know (and that's more than I want to), does not have a characterized protagonist, but is rather an MMO/sandbox game. This means that it is excluded from Complete Monster consideration by definition, and you cannot call its players CMs, however much you might wish to.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Don't forget Hatred and The Witch's House (though that's a unique case). As for no Rapelay, effing P5 and hypocritical Google 
edited 30th Jul '15 11:34:37 AM by ACW
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
ACW: If you're wondering about Saints Row!Satan still counting, well I think I should point out the worse that most villains do in the series is kill people; Satan rules Hell where he has souls tortured, and takes gleeful pride in the torments of his victims, from And I Must Scream torments to basic trolling; he also plans to lay siege to heaven and is using recruits of demons and the damned, and is not about forced recruitment as well. He also directly states he's the reason hell is what it is.
I compare Saints Row!Satan to Dantes Inferno!Lucifer, because both basically have the same goal in mind; both want revenge on God and to take over heaven.
"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."
@Ramidel: He sounds like he could very well count, but usually this thread prefers suggestions in the form of 'effort posts' like this. It helps to give context and answer some questions people will have.
edited 30th Jul '15 12:47:11 PM by Camberf
That game was cut as porn IIRC. No examples allowed.
Should we just put "All Porn" into the Never Again list?
We do not have a policy disallowing examples from 5P cut works. So I think not.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Messenger from another dimension.
Speaking of Satan, I remembered Castlevania Satan. We have qualified Castlevania Satan long time ago. I found a perfect image for him;
The guy on the picture is his son!
edited 30th Jul '15 1:16:05 PM by emperors
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So we can have CM examples from porn?
It's really small to me.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Small, and without much context.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Messenger from another dimension.
Really?! Well actually, I have both a Mac and a PC. It is pretty big on my PC but small on my mac.
Edit: how to attach an image to the post?
edited 30th Jul '15 1:59:37 PM by emperors
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Lost in Space
I... don't know what to say about that question. Can we have examples from such works? I suppose so. Should we? I would argue that there is no need to broaden our search for CMs to banned works when there are plenty of other examples to vet.
edited 30th Jul '15 1:59:24 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Agreed. I think it's a similar principle to the one mentioned earlier about darkfic.
(Also, I've always disagreed in the first place with the policy of allowing examples when we don't want their source works, but that's a subject for a different thread).
Zeus tried to kill Kratos for pretty decent reasons: namely Kratos was handling his issues by having the Spartans rampage all over the lands and destroy whatever got in the way
Most of the Gods are killed in rather needless fashion even after Kratos already won the fights. I'll spot him Heracles but he killed Perseus horribly (his brother), as well as a variety of others. And he killed Hera because...an insult?
Area might lack redeeming qualities but he sure as heck does a lot less damage.