Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

Don't know if this is the place to bring this up, but the Monster.Disgaea is about 95% spoilered. Could you guys clean this up when you get to it? As an aside, it needs to be indexed.

"Polite life will fill you full of cancer." - Iggy Pop "I've seen the future, brother, it is murder." -Leonard Cohen

@5218 Saying what he would or wouldn't do isn't sufficient. He actually has to try to do terrible actions on the scale of Complete Monster. Being willing to do so is covered completely by The Sociopath.

In short, it's a start, but it's not enough.

@5228 Well, technically, Moral Event Horizon is outside of the scope of this cleanup. That said, I wouldn't mind cutting that, too.

@5232 No, that falls way short of the heinous standard.

Also, seriously, I don't think you get this trope. I did a quick review of your posts in this thread, and you have invariably posted some of the weakest candidates for possible inclusion. I appreciate that you are at least trying to get examples added in the correct fashion - bringing them up here and arguing for them. But you have such a weak grasp on just what "heinous" means in context of this trope that I'm starting to feel bad about the fact that you consistently and repeatedly get shot down.

This is a trope for people who actively try to rape, murder, torture, ruin others' lives, and doing all of that while completely lacking any shred of positive character trait. This is not merely "the bad guy." Please look over the work we do in this thread, in particular the examples we keep, before suggesting any further examples.

@5240 I think this is the point where I'm curious as to whether there's this massive group that doesn't know what the trope means, or if we have a Single-Issue Wonk that keeps trying to avoid the channels we set up for dealing with this trope.

@5246 Agree to cut all three. Scrooge becomes The Atoner (i.e. redeemable features, since, you know, he does get redeemed at the end), Christmas Past is merely doing Pay Evil unto Evil and his behavior really only rises to Jerkass behavior besides. Old Joe isn't even remotely heinous.

@5251 Actually, based on @3577 and @3711 with no objections, we did an unspoiled version of Super Hero Aurum and moved him to Monster.Video Games, and voted that the others didn't qualify. We got rid of all of the links to that page, but we somehow forgot to Cut List it. Taken care of.

Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

Hoo boy...

1) We know that hires someone to accidentally kill CJ's mom, you mean; as far as I'm concerned, it doesn't even matter given its lack of directness, but I'll answer this anyway. Yes, I want to see this stuff occur on-screen, and if it doesn't, that's a problem. I think the script for Tenpenny is good enough such that you can still think he's a total dick without having seen it, but that's largely it for me. Words alone with off-screen deeds should never be enough to make the viewer so thoroughly disgusted that they literally consider the otherwise "human" character, to which they're attributed, a symbolic representation of evil itself.

2) He shows no remorse when everything gets out of control, much like... uh, how many other villains? He's an unrepentant dick; so what? This effort has axed plenty of people who didn't reserve a single thought about the chaos that they personally generated. If your main crime is being an unrepentant dick in the wake of chaos, that means you're a Jerkass villain, not a Complete Monster. This counts especially so because he himself did not directly cause the riot. He treats it as something that may as well have happened anyway? Alright, this character is a Jerkass. The lack of direct culpability makes this a silly qualifier; when an entry argues that things so indirectly related to the villain in question are worthy of putting him in this trope, you know you have something questionable.

3) Really? Did you really just ask who cares about Tenpenny's perspective? We do, that's who. That's a necessary thing to tackle in regards to this effort, because it contains a massive chunk of internal context that is necessary to evaluating him. If you're going to ignore context, intentions and motivation, I hope you're prepared to generate tons of craptastic entries. This ain't some "kill a few dudes, you're in" kind of deal. In Tenpenny's case, this is a severe issue because he exists in the world of Grand Theft Auto. He needs to meet a specific level of heinousness in a world filled with nasty criminals. The way Tenpenny goes about his business puts him in a precarious position in this regard, as I have already alluded to and will continue to do so.

Here's my biggest issue: the vast bulk of his crimes are aimed at stifling opposition to his little quest for power, and nothing more. That's the point of a damn villain; they're going to exterminate their enemies in order to keep themselves in a comfortable position. What Tenpenny does to these people is going to be what any villain worth their salt does; there's no doubt that Hernandez knew this, as well as anyone else who crossed him. When you explicitly put yourself in the way of the villain, you're gonna meet with that reality. What Tenpenny does is put together the basic building blocks to establish the lowest level of actual heinousness; you do not become a Complete Monster by being "basic". Tenpenny never goes beyond these little building blocks to forge a tower of atrocity; he's just this Jerkass who wants power and will destroy anyone who opposes him.

4) Uh, let's see... Mike Toreno has you kill FBI and military personnel, The Truth has you attack and kill everyone in a military-run convoy, Ryder has you attack a National Guard-run base, god knows how many missions involve fighting the police and OG Loc's second mission requires you to murder your way through security detail. I'm probably missing a few, too. In short, a lot of people have Carl do what Tenpenny does. Heck, I hardly see how the victims not being law-enforcing individuals invalidates Carl's immediate willingness to murder a bunch of construction workers for hitting on his sister, or Zero having you murder his rival's workers just because he hates his rival as well, or OG Loc having you murder Madd Dogg's manager and his wife, an action that Carl specifically does with a tinge of glee. Tenpenny's demands amount to jack in a scenario that goes bat-shit crazy in the blink of an eye.

Carl rarely complains about what he does from a moral standpoint, even in the face of all of this. If he complains, it's because of how ridiculous the objective actually is. He has no qualms with what C.R.A.S.H. has him do normally; he just hates being controlled by a pair of massive Jerkasses.

I'd like to add Ox Baker to Complete Monster/Professional Wrestling. I didn't know this thread existed because I haven't been involved in any of the CM related drama before, but Ox Baker not only qualifies he may well have been the first Monster in wrestling.

Ox Baker was a heel from the 70s who "killed" two men with his Heart Punch finishing move and bragged about it.

(What really happened is that one man, Alberto Torres, ruptured his appendix in a match with Baker and died from it. Although it wasn't Baker's fault, the promoters convinced him to take credit for it. A year later, a man named Ray Gunkel died 3 days after a match with Ox Baker, accounts differ as to the specific cause of death, and wrestling promoters had Baker take credit for that too.)

-The character is truly heinous by the standards of the story, which makes no attempt to present the character in any positive way. (Check - I can't think of a single example outside of Ox where a wrestler bragged about killing another wrestler) -The character's terribleness is played seriously at all times, evoking fear, revulsion and hatred from the other characters in the story. (Check - there are numerous interviews about how feared and hated Ox was. Even his Wikipedia article mentions this. Although he worked as a face before he started using the Ox Baker gimmick, I don't believe Ox Baker ever worked as a face) -They are completely devoid of altruistic qualities. They show no regret for their crimes. (Check - Ox's catchphrase, which he coined after the first Heart Punch related death, was "Hurting people is fun!")

And this is the entry as I'd written it.

• Ox Baker became one of the most notorious and hated heels of the 1970's after he killed a man named Alberto Torres in a wrestling match with his Heart Punch finisher. When an interviewer asked why, he responded "I LOVE to hurt people!". It became his catch phrase. A year later, Baker killed another man, Ray Gunkel, with the Heart Punch. (In real life, neither of the deaths were Baker's fault. Torres ruptured his appendix, and Gunkel died of a heart attack 3 days after the match. Furthermore, Baker was privately distraught about the deaths and only worked it as though they were deliberate because the promoters told him to.)

Russell... likes to hurt people... for PEACE.

@ Aqua

1. Thing is, we know he does it, it's pointed out, he mocks CJ over it. This is different than just being informed in an aside, same with the one Hernandez killed, as those play huge roles in the story.

2. So, he shows no remorse to people dying and a city burning because of him? That's a mark in favor of him remaining on the list, not against. And we know it wouldn't have happened if not for him. It's done in response to him. His plan is 'let the cityburn, they'll beg for me to come back and crack down again." W

3. No, you missed my point. You're arguing "but Hernandez was a traitor" is a mitigating factor, even though his 'treachery' amounts to 'let's be the good guy and alert people Tenpenny is a corrupt, murderous scumbag." 'I'm looking out for myself' is not a redeeming quality. and yes, GTA is filed with criminals. The work presents Tenpenny as far more heinous than, say...Salvatore Leone, Tommy Vercetti, Sonny Forrelli...you have to get to Dimitri Rascalov before you reach Tenpenny's equal in villainy. Look at Sweet. Tenpenny makes an extra effort to destroy the people who gets in his way while the Leones, Forrellis, Vercetti, etc. limited their activities to other criminals. Is Dimitri Rascalov redeeming because everything he does is to forge an empire for himself, and he eliminates anyone with the perspective of 'man, they could be a problem later!' I would say not.

Tenpenny doesn't just "kill who's in my way", he forces a good cop to murder another, he has noncombatants eliminated, he shows no remorse over forcing people to do his dirty work and kill people who threaten to expose him, only to eliminate them later and he'll gladly ruin your life if you get in his way. This is beyond business or a war between factions. Tenpenny inserts himself into the city's peoples' lives in ways the mafia does not.

Toreno wants Carl to take out enemy agencies and eliminate enemy agents. Pretty standard. The Truth wants him to expose government conspiracies. Yes, there's Kick the Dog bits from others, but most of it has a reasoning behind it that's better than Tenpanny's "this is a good person who has evidence I'm evil. Kill 'em."

@5254: That's a tricky one, largely because of the way that wrestling tends to blur reality and fiction. But keep in mind that we do have some bare-minimum heinousness requirements beyond "by the standards of the story", and I'm not entirely sure that an accidental death, even combined with an utter lack of remorse, really meets that requirement.

But I don't know how prone wrestling is to ret-conning. I assume that Ox didn't actually claim he was going to kill these people before they died, but I imagine that the story might have been adjusted after-the-fact to claim that he did. If so, then that might be barely enough to make him qualify.

Speaking words of fandom: let it squee, let it squee.

Your point in regards to the "mitigating factor" thing was actually something I never bothered to touch in to my last response because it was arguing over the tiniest thing, hence it being a mitigating factor. Here's my point, the core as to why I don't think Tenpenny qualifies, which you've demonstrated several times that you've missed:

"Tenpenny makes an extra effort to destroy the people who gets in his way"

"he shows no remorse over forcing people to do his dirty work and kill people who threaten to expose him''

"he'll gladly ruin your life if you get in his way"

"but most of it has a reasoning behind it that's better than Tenpanny's "this is a good person who has evidence I'm evil. Kill 'em."

Yes, he will fuck you over quickly and harshly if you get in his way. Plenty of villains do this! Sonny definitely does this when he perceives Tommy as a threat (the penultimate mission of Vice City is about him sending his goons to attack people you've employed that have no personal stake in his conflict), Pegorino does this when he perceives Niko as a threat, as does Dimitri (see below). Plenty of villains do this, it's a standard for GTA villains, it's a standard even for less heinous universes! This is Protagonist-Centered Morality at its finest; were I a villain, I would crush any opposition under a steel-toed boot because that's just rational. It doesn't matter if you're a good person or a bad one, you are a threat and therefore must be extinguished. A good Complete Monster goes far and beyond this; Tenpenny doesn't. This "extra effort" you mention never happens. He screws over Sweet because he's aligned against him; his mother's death is an accident. He screws over Carl because it's obvious that were he not to keep a fine hold on him, Carl would butcher him. He screws over the numerous snitches, these aforementioned non-combatants, because they want to screw him over. His demands, the bulk of what would potentially make him heinous, are not worlds apart from how everything else commences: Toreno's missions do involve real casualties, which Toreno just brushes off, and the Truth's motives do not entirely justify the systematic murder of a convoy in the context of this mission. These demands take place in the most violent and audacious game in the series, in which the most innocents are killed and the most in-depth sequences of violence commence. If they're not going beyond the norm here, they're not going to make for very convincing arguments.

I'm not arguing over redeeming features; there is nothing redeemable about Tenpenny. When I speak of mitigating factors, I ain't saying "oh he's a good person because he doesn't do this this", I'm saying there's a regard in which he isn't complete anathema to all of existence. My thing is that the way he goes about his business is typical villainy; you're not a Complete Monster just because there's nothing to redeem you. You become a Complete Monster because you go far beyond the call to be as evil as possible, above everyone else. What I'm arguing is that Tenpenny is not above everyone else in this regard; he's a standard villain per the universe. A thug along the lines of Dimitri (again, see below) and Sonny. He is part of the crowd, not the exception.

I guess I can't really phrase what I find to be the most relevant argument against in a better way, so I guess I'll end with this such that this doesn't escalate further. Feel free to respond over anything you find wrong and compile one last draft for your main argument, and then I guess we'll just wait for everyone else to determine which of us has put up the better argument.

By the way, it's funny you say Dimitri Rascalov is Tenpenny's equal; this effort has already removed Dimitri for not being heinous enough. I wanted to draw a parallel to him with this detail established, but I skipped doing so in order to trim that post down a bit. I guess I should have done that.

edited 1st Dec '12 5:56:47 PM by AquaRegia

This isn't a legitimate enterprise he's running. Tenpenny ruins people who try to STOP him from being a corrupt, murderous, evil bastard. That's no comparison. It's not the Mafia taking out rival drug dealers or fighting a gang war. It's a corrupt cop having good cops killed when they try to stop him from being a corrupt cop. There's a major distinction.

Tenpenny will fuck you if you get in his way. Or if you're related to someone who gets in his way. Or if he thinks you MIGHT get in his way. And he'll really enjoy destroying you. He's far beyond a 'typical jerkass'. Ther'es no mob boss who basically destroys an entire city like he does.

The Truth, at least, thinks he's doing something for a greater purpose. So does Toreno. Tenpenny? The bottom line for him is Tenpenny. He doesn't have a higher purpose, he doesn't restrict himself to combatants. Everything is "I am going to run this city as a druglord for my own benefit." He's a murderer, a rapist, a thug and a villain. Nothing justifies the things he does and he has no qualms catching up anyone.

edited 1st Dec '12 9:01:18 PM by Lightysnake

Re: The A Christmas Carol entries: Agree that they should all be axed. Scrooge gets redeemed, Old Joe is a bit character, and, at least in the original (not really familiar with any actual adaptations), the Ghost of Christmas Past is just trying to get Scrooge to see the happiness and goodness he's passed up on—it may not be the nicest thing, but it's needed to make the point.

I went ahead and deleted them- I guess I should have waited, but they just seemed so obviously bad.

Hodor

Right. I've gone and watched The Cleopatras. Dear God, what a mess... there's a good mini-series in there somewhere, but it's buried under a pile of stylistic miscalculations. The set design, the editing, the music, the direction... all completely wrong for the material. Something tells me Richard Griffiths doesn't list his role as Ptolemy VIII Physcon prominently on his CV.

Anyway, regarding the CM entry on YMMV.The Cleopatras... to be honest, the whole Ptolemaic dynasty are such a bunch of bastards in the series that no-one really stands out. They all stab each other in the back, sometimes literally, but I'd consider them various flavours of Magnificent and/or Manipulative Bastards, and not Complete Monsters. It doesn't help that the series isn't very good at the whole Show, Don't Tell thing, so a lot of their nastiest actions happen off screen anyway. I vote to axe the entry completely, not even replacing it with a re-write.

Draft entry for Caligula in The Caesars to follow when I've re-watched the last two episodes of the series.

@5256

Completely "in-character", what happened was Baker accidentally killed a guy with the Heart Punch, but he reveled in having done so, kept on using the Heart Punch, and eventually killed a second guy with it.

(I only mentioned the behind the scenes stuff in case people reading it wondered why Baker didn't get arrested. If it confuses the issue too badly for non wrestling fans, it doesn't need to be mentioned)

Russell... likes to hurt people... for PEACE.

I'm voting against Tennpenny, because he clearly doesn't count. He can't be truly henious, because while he does have an impressive (99% off-screen) bodycount, all of that was done to gain power, which would describe 99% of all Grand Theft Auto Villians, with the remaining 1% being the Complete Monster who killed because he enjoyed it.

He fails the henious standard within his own game because while he kills people rather directly (ie just shoots them), CJ (that's the protagonist) in canon burries a man alive because his workers made cat-calls at his sister (who, without condoning the behavour, is wearing short-shorts and some cloth arranged as a top). One is acting like 90% of villians across all mediums (who, it needs to be stated since you apparantly forgot, routinely murder their way to get power for their own ends), and the other is taking Disportunate Retribution to a level where only torture or rape could surpass in terms of heniousness. (Also, you call Tennpenny a rapist. Um, what? Where did that charge come from?)

Snake, you just don't get what a Complete Monster is from all of your edits here. Your definition of truly henious would cover the 90% of villians who don't qualify for a trope that disqualifies them for this one (Well-Intentioned Extremist, Redemption Equals Death, etc).

I'd say the character counts, since the character was bragging about killing other characters whilst there being a clear distinction between the character and the man behind him.

edited 2nd Dec '12 3:42:53 AM by Shaoken

Bragging about killing other characters does not normally make for a CM, although I don't know enough about wrestling to tell what its heinousness standard would be. And the bits about how dreaded he was are simply proving that he was... well... The Dreaded.

(Also, the behind-the-scenes stuff has got to be one of the most downright ghoulish things I've ever heard of).

Edit: Actually, come to think of it... has this thread really been paying as much attention to the idea of "heinous by the standards of the work" as it should be? As horribly sick as I am of the children's work stuff*

, I think we do have to keep in mind that what counts as heinous for in something like that is not what counts as heinous in a GRIMDARK work.

edited 2nd Dec '12 3:54:10 AM by nrjxll

We are, that's why I went and said "Tennpenny can't be truly henious because the Protagonist does more henious things."

We also made an unoffical ruling that there is actually a base level of heniousness that a CM has to meet in order to qualify just to exclude the extreme kids shows like My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic, although in works like those I would also rule that the work itself is not dark enough to make someone beyond redemption.

@nrjxll: You're theory on What Do You Mean, It's for Kids? keeps coming back into my mind, especially when Rise Of The Guardians came out, I was thinking... huh, this guys going on the YMMV page as a CM... oh well, maybe he won't spiral out of control like Turbo.

Should we focus on the MLP example? Or would that just derail the discussion.

Have removed this from the YMMV page for Justified.

• Complete Monster: Arlo is implied to have been this in the past, until he started taking medication. Now that he's calmed down, he's become a Magnificent Bastard.
  • Deconstructed with Boyd Crowder, as much of season one's arc with him is debated with the notion if his apparent reformation is just an elaborate con. In the end, he has indeed reformed and found religion. However, while he does ultimately relapse into villainy, he's dropped the racist element and has mellowed out somewhat..
  • Bo Crowder however, well...
  • Wynn Duffy, though he has since gotten demoted by new big bad Quarles (Duffy's superior who works for a crime syndicate based out of Detroit).
  • Robert Quarles in season three, who has no qualms about killing colleagues and mooks who outlive their usefulness. His proclivity for torturing, sexually abusing, and killing male hustlers solidified his Complete Monster status.

A whole bunch of Zero Context Examples. I'll note that some of it is just plain wrong to. Arlo and Boyd at no point treaded even close to the trope. Arlo's a Vietnam vet with both PTSD and bipolar disorder and is played relatively sympathetically. Boyd's racism and neo-Nazi tendencies don't outlast the first episode.

As for the rest, Bo Crowder seems to have cared about his son Bowman, while at the same time being displeased with his habit of beating his wife. He's also a very pragmatic villain who generally avoids extreme measures until he's backed into a corner. Wynn Duffy sold out Quarles because he found his habit of abusing male prostitutes disgusting. And Quarles has both a horrific Freudian Excuse, and seems to love his son.

One of Justified's entire points is making the villains seem like people. Of the characters listed, Bo Crowder, Wynn Duffy, and Robert Quarles, all tread close to this trope, but I would contend, have too many human qualities to fully qualify.

edited 2nd Dec '12 1:57:19 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

@ Shaoken

Don't tell me 'I clearly don't understand' it when I've been contributing to this thread for some time now, and have contributed to more than one example. I have a different opinion than you. If I'm outvoted, fine. but Tenpenny is, at the worst, a very debatable proposition and not as open and shut as you make it.

Let's just do a quick check on your history; you've been downright rude to 32 Footsteps, you've engaged in several debates that are just skirting the edge of Single-Issue Wonk, your Tennpenny arguments have been weak, and in a few cases you've ignored the facts as presented.

Yeah, you've been contributing to this thread for some time now. Krystoff has been contributing for even longer, and he still got edit-banned because he just did not get it, so length participating is irrelevant.

And yes, it really is an open-and-shut case: Tennpenny's most henious acts - multiple acts of murder to cover up his crimes, with confirmed direct death count of one innocent.

Our 'Hero' CJ's crimes

• Driving a car into the ocean when the people in the backseat (a records manager and his client's girlfriend) couldn't swim or get out, leaving them to drown.
• Killing a rapper's entire security detail to steal his ryhme book. This, in conjunction with the above, was solely to help a friend's music career.
  • And since you're treating indirect consequences of actions as counting, his actions drove Madd Dogg to suicide, and no CJ saving his life doesn't make up for that fact.
• Burying a construction work manager alive in concrete because some of his workers made calls at his sister. Note his sister's attire consists of short-shorts and just enough cloth to be considered a shirt.
• Gladly goes along with one of Tennpenny's frame ups because the victim is a DA.
• Kills scores of cops, government agents, workers etc. for pretty pety reasons (help put a friend's rival out of business, because a conspiracy theorist wants sort of green-goo, etc.)

So it's hard to say that Tennpenny is truly henious when the player character performs actions on par or even more henious that his.

I have been banned for different reason though (like jumping a gun).

Footsteps is also rude sometimes (calling me a Single-Issue Wonk for talking about Rodrigo Borgia even though not only he hasn't play the game, but looked like him and you have actually been outvoted).

As for Tenpenny, agree with the cut, but he is not on the list in a first place. I don't care if characters are on YMMV page, as long as they are not on main pages.

Also support axing A Christmas Carol examples.

edited 2nd Dec '12 4:48:27 PM by Krystoff

Yes, do that check, Shaoken. Asking 32 footsteps for his opinion was rude? I helped clean up with Live Action tv section, along with the I, Claudius entry, the Caesars,and others. I haven't done an edit I hadn't checked here, and if anyone has issues with me, they can say so. Your behavior here is firmly uncalled for. I have no issue conceding Tenpenny like I did Burrows. I considered it debatable, you don't. More people are in favor of cutting, so it gets cut. I consider Tenpenny worse than CJ, people disagree. Okay, then. That's what democracy in this thread is for. Don't get rude because I disagreed with you.

Figures. The Justified examples mentioned above? Two of them are on the page for Live Action TV.

• Justified:
  • Harlan County crimelord Bo Crowder in season 1. To punish his son Boyd, he commands his nephew Johnny to savagely beat Boyd. When Boyd returns to his vigilante "church" in the forest, he discovers that Bo and his henchmen murdered all of his followers.
  • Season 3 has Robert Quarles, a Detroit mob lieutenant. Quarles has no qualms about killing colleagues or mooks who outlive their usefulness, and he has a long history of abducting, torturing, and sexually abusing male hustlers. His antics were so alarming to the Detroit mob that he was exiled to Kentucky to manage the Oxy trade there.

Fact is, Bo gave both Boyd multiple chances to walk away. He only attacks Boyd's church after Boyd blows up his meth shipment and leaves Bo himself in danger of being fed to Geo's aligators. In fact Bo has a pattern of giving people many, many chances to leave town before he goes after them.

As for Quarles, he was horrifically sexually abused by his father, which left him completely screwed up. The scene where he confesses this is genuinely sympathetic. There's also the fact that he commits most of his crimes in an oxycotin-induced haze, and he does seem to care about his son.

Yep, Ambar and I had discussed those. I'm in favor of axing the Justified examples

@nrjll: I would like to hear this theory. Perhaps as a PM.

I've mentioned it several times before in this thread: I very strongly suspect the reason why we have such a big problem with shoehorned "Complete Monsters" in children's media is because the tropers who watch/read that media are trying to "justify" their watching it by arguing that it's really more mature than it seems (see also: the misuse singularity that is Getting Crap Past the Radar). Claiming that the work has a Complete Monster is one of doing that.