Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

@ Krystoff: That was just the last step of a long list of problems, some of which you got better at.

And you were having a Single-Issue Wonk; Rodrigo had been brought up before, by you, and was voted down, and you brought him back again with an issue (the implied rape) that had already been discussed the first time. That by definition is a Single-Issue Wonk. It didn't matter that at the time people seemed to be outvoting us, the issue had been settled before definitively and you brought it up again because you thought we overlooked something that had clearly been ruled as not-applicable the last time.

And for the last time, playing a game is not a factor in wether or not your qualified to make a decision, so please stop bringing it up.

@ Lightysnake : this is the post in question I was refering to, the highlights being:

"You've had a poor attitude from almost the first post and frankly, I don't really care how long you've been in this thread"

"Otherwise, this 'let's take a step back and insult you as opposed to reasonable dialogue' is tiresome "

This being in response to him asking you to use the search bar to read up on when your candidate had been discussed before and to read the first page, and was incredibly disrespectful.

So my whole problem with you is that you basically argued in circles with Aqua on Tennpenny twice on this page, and showed a distinct lack of understanding of what the definition "truly henious" means in context of Grand Theft Auto San Andreas, and you used an argument to justify Tennpenny's inclusion that it was even pointed out would fit any villian in general. That is why I don't think you understand what a Complete Monster is, since you're confusing being a selfish Jerkass whose crossed the Moral Event Horizon with being the greatest evil in your field.

I remember you bringing up the point many times and I think that's pretty spot on. It's either that or the the (again, often mentioned) idea that people think a show having a Complete Monster is cool (which was essentially Brony99's deal).

edited 2nd Dec '12 6:22:20 PM by Shaoken

I've already discussed and buried any hatchet with Footsteps, but I rather dislike the implied point of "he can treat you any way he likes, and if you say he's being rude and insulting, you aught be condemned for it." I don't have any desire to revisit this, but don't make it seem like a party was never rude or insulting in word or tone. anyways, like I said, this was some time ago, I have no interest in arguing it again.

The reason I think Tenpenny is a CM was because I view him as truly heinous by the standards of the story which makes no effort in presenting them in a positive light. The reason for my disagreement is I feel Carl is presented as an ultimately positive figure in the story, while Tenpenny is not. He is wholly devoid of altruism and he's played seriously at all times to evoke the hatred, revulsion etc.

We have a disagreement. No more, no less. There's really no reason to make it unpleasant. I'm dropping the issue because clearly people disagree and I'm fine with that. I've raised examples people agree with and helped cut ones that didn't fit. I think I have a decent grasp of it here

I respect your viewpoints and your activity in this thread, Shaoken. I don't want further unpleasantness. If I offended you, my apologies, and I'd prefer to go with a clean slate.

Alright, consider anything I had against you dropped.

So at final count, it's me, Aqua, and Krystoff against. Did you change your vote or are you still for his inclusion? If you are, I'd like more votes on the matter.

I'll happily submit to group consensus and change my vote to against Tenpenny here

Okay, glad to see that people are calming down. Anybody other then Lightysnake have an opinion on those Justified examples? As far as the great GTA debate goes I have trouble believing that any villain in any game in that franchise could be as bad as the protagonist. This is a series where you run around shooting people and jacking cars for the hell of it.

I agree with cutting them, it seems that all of them fall short of the 100% evil catagory.

Alright. That's three votes in favour of cutting then.

Looking at the Ox Baker post at 5254 I will say this: if we are going to keep the Professional Wrestling page, this guy should be on it. Nothing that anybody on the page does comes close to actually killing someone—most of them boil down to cheating, sadism in the ring, Domestic Abuse, and so on. Being so brutal as to commit manslaughter? Bragging about it afterwards? And then deliberately committing another murder? That's special. By the standards of wrestling, he's one of the worst heels ever, and if the other guys on the page count, this guy definitely does.

edited 2nd Dec '12 8:11:38 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Quick question - are there enough examples for Law & Order and SVU on Monster.Live Action TV to merit being split to their own pages?

Looks like it to me. Though, we should probably go over some of those to make sure they all qualify. I have the first eight seasons of Law & Order on DVD.

EDIT: Okay, someone has used some of the entries to bemoan the loss of the death penalty. That's gotta go.

edited 2nd Dec '12 8:14:24 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Oh, boy, how'd I miss this one...

Monster.Live Action TV

Prison Break

• Prison Break: Wyatt Mathewson, the season four Dragon who murdered Alex Mahone's innocent son, is arguably the worst (or at least scariest) character in the series in terms of sheer cruelty and pitilessness, despite being just an executive agent and assassin.
  • And Christina Scofield. What a bitch.

Yeah, this needs cleanup, I think.

If nothing else those badly need an expansion.

Doing a little research and yeah, Wyatt can probably stay. He's a torturer, murderer and kills a child on the show, which is a line that's usually...quite hard to pass on network TV. He just seems to be the evil conspiracy's pet psychopath.

Christina Scofield is apparently responsible for a ton of evil deeds for the company and has no issue trying to kill her own son. Is anyone familiar with the show to do expansions?

A few things I came across.

There's a huge Complete Monster list for True Blood, and most if not all of them are Zero Context Examples.

Rasheed from A Thousand Splendid Suns is listed both on the YMMV page and Literature, but according to the main page, he has a Pet the Dog moment.

edited 2nd Dec '12 9:51:05 PM by TVRulezAgain

Rasheed, IMO, doesn't count; he is horribly abusive to his wives, but cares greatly for his sons, even the one implied to not be biologically his. Even if people think he counts and the vote swings against me, the natter note about 'I don't think anyone could disagree with this' on the YMMV page needs to go now.

I have to second both your motions on that front.

Oh, lord, the True Blood page is wretched...

Okay, Mary Ann might count...she is devoted to her 'God,' but that's revealed to be nothing more than a reflection of her own desires, as I recall.

Reading on Nigel...he ends up locked up because he ate a lot of babies. Yeah, I'm for keeping that.

Gabe is a racist thug who works for the Fellowship of the Sun who seems to be just a sadist, who tries to rape Sookie. Scum, but is he heinous enough?

Russell needs to go. So does Steve Newlin. Russell loved his boyfriend, and Newlin's just pitiful.

As for Rasheed...I could see keeping him. He doesn't seem to be too big on his kids. He just likes the idea of having kids more. He's still badly abusive and the women know it'd be a mtter of time till he stopped the act. He was nice to the wives for a time, too. I vote the pet the dog and the other stuff on the YMMV page be axed. Now, it's been a while since I read a Thousand Splendid Suns, but looking at wiki, it says he almost kills Aziza.

From what I recall, Rasheed is good at feigning affection and goodwill, but the second it doesn't go his way? The nature of the facade slips and he shows his true colors. Seems to be like Amon Goeth. an act or aping 'normal' feelings

edited 2nd Dec '12 10:20:19 PM by Lightysnake

@5288: I'm agreeing to cut for the reasons that 5289 states.

Found this on Monster.Literature:

• Jaffur the ifrit only appears twice in "Wandering Djinn", but between his onscreen (or onpage) support of a murdering rapist and his sheer sadistic joy at nearly ripping apart hero Malik's former lover, along with the implication that he's done a lot worse over his existence, he qualifies for this trope.

I haven't read the work in question, but off-screen deeds don't count, right? He sounds like he gets overshadowed by the guy he cheers on.

Opinions?

^ Right, Offscreen Villainy doesn't count towards CM status. The audience has to see/read/etc it.

Well, I missed a fun Sunday here.

First thing I'll note: memo to self, the cutmaster(s) are even better about taking weekends off from TV Tropes than I am. I hope Monster.Disgaea gets cut soon.

Now, since I overlooked it, Officer Tenpenny from Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. I guess the first thing to note is that we are talking a very Crapsack World, so the "heinous" bar is harder to clear for this game.

So far as I can see, Tenpenny just barely dances around qualifying. Offscreen killings are Offscreen Villainy, even if you see the effects (because, honestly, you usually do see the effects of Offscreen Villainy in a series). Being uncaring about something you accidentally cause is not sufficient to qualify; we cover that in the FAQ (you have to be actively pleased with accidental results). Finally, what he does is about par for the course in Grand Theft Auto - I honestly think that he receives prominence in the game less for his deeds and more for his voice actor (which is not a bad thing, mind you). If they revisit the character (in a prequel or something like that), I'll reconsider then. But for now, I vote no.

@5254 Ah, this is where we get into the dicey hair-splitting between Kayfabe and real life. It has been a nightmare for this section before.

First, we will note that Douglas A. Baker does not qualify for multiple reasons, including the obvious point that this is a No Real Life Examples Please trope.

That said, his ring persona, Ox Baker, is a fictional character. Regardless of what happened in real life, the fictional version does get to be held accountable for two murders, since they present Ox Baker as having committed those, and it's certainly well beyond what even other heels do. The only question I really have is if Ox Baker, the persona, ever truly had a Heel–Face Turn. It's fine if Douglas Baker did play a babyface; it's the question of Ox Baker ever going babyface. If you could do some more research to answer that question, I could make a clear vote.

@5256 That's a good point - do they present Ox Baker's deaths as an accident that he was pleased over, or do they present those deaths as something that was planned in Kayfabe?

@5261 If they all kind of blend together, sounds like a mass cut is in order. If nobody stands out, nobody gets included.

@5264 We are paying attention to both "heinous in general" as well as "heinous by the standards of the story." One of the big parts to the former is asking whether a character could be redeemed for their actions if they theoretically sought it out (not whether they actually would - in many cases, Character Derailment would have to happen in-canon for it to occur).

To take one example that gets axed in part for this reason, Plankton of Sponge Bob Square Pants. Would he actually try to seek forgiveness for what he's done? Probably not (it would kind of ruin the dynamic of the show). But, if he was really committed, could he reasonably atone for what he's done without seeming like a Karma Houdini? I say yes, so he wouldn't count.

Most kids' show villains are like that, which is why I'm very reserved about allowing any kids' show villains on the list.

@5267 Well, first off, if they only imply it, Justified wouldn't be declaring Arlo a Complete Monster at all. If anything, I'd give that a cite to You Monster! and call it a day. We're going with no deconstructions, so Boyd would fall under different villain tropes (possibly Driven to Villainy, from the sound of it). Bo, cut for being a stub. Wynn sounds like he gets overshadowed, so that's an easy cut. If Quarles loves (without creepy overtones) his son, I'm inclined to cut, although the Freudian Excuse falls a bit flat if he's sexually abusing folks (though that gets into issues about the cycle of abuse in regards to sexual abuse, which is a very dicey subject).

@5275 Your theory is perhaps correct, but I have a different one.

I don't feel that folks are trying to justify their work as more "mature" because it has a Complete Monster, in large part because I do suspect that many of the people trying to do that are not adults themselves.

Personally, I think it's because a great many people don't actually understand monstrous depravity. I think it's that folks are so comfortable and civilized that they cannot adequately judge, in many cases, just how much worse certain crimes are compared to others. In short, I think some folks just have so little experience with evil that they can't adequately judge it.

I'm fully aware that's actually a variety of Argumentam Ad Hominem, but I don't know if it's a fallacy, per se. I think it's actually an argument that folks don't quite have enough experience yet to judge such things. At any rate, I don't hold it against anyone.

@5283 Actually, I think we need to look over Law And Order SVU to make sure the examples are good first. I can imagine just how many try to appear in there, but the bar for heinousness is pretty low in a series about a squad of cops that investigates sex crimes.

@5285 Hrm... I think we're seeing the double standard about gender raising its head again. I want to cut Christina... and for that matter, I'd want major expansion on Wyatt, as I don't think that's enough.

@5288 It'd help if you brought the examples here and gave your thoughts on each one.

@5293 Agreed on that cut.

I haven't read A Thousand Splendid Suns in a while, either, but Hosseini is really good at writing seemingly awful characters with just a spark of goodwill. I can see if I can pick it up and give it a skim-through again.

@5295

As someone who isn't that familiar with professional wrestling, I've got to say that most of the examples on the page seem rather weak to me. The proposed addition of Ox Baker is the first time I've seen an entry that actually made me go, "yeah, he could have a shot at this trope." The way the OP described it, it sounds as though the first death was an accident that he then bragged about (which still makes him much worse then most other heels), but he then continued to use the Dangerous Forbidden Technique that caused it, causing another one. Looking over the page, that seems pretty goddamn evil for the genre.

Regarding Justified I'll note that it's a pretty dark show. Our hero, Raylan, is a "cop" who deliberately provoked a gunfight in the first episode so he'd have an excuse to kill someone he hated. Our deuteragonist is Boyd, an ex-neo-Nazi turned vigilante turned local crime boss. All of the villains do godawful things. As far as the examples on the Live Action TV page go, Bo may have massacred all of Boyd's men, but he let Boyd walk out of town, even after everything Boyd did to him, while Quarles is obsessed with proving himself to his boss, Theo Tonin who saved him from his abusive dad.

I'll also note that Justified is further proof of why we should always wait awhile before adding examples. In Seasons 1& 2, I would have told you that Wynn Duffy was a total bastard and belonged on the list. Then along comes Season 3, and it turns out that you know what, serial rape and murder squick him right the Hell out. Will reference this next time someone tries the "oh my god we have to add this example from last night," bit.

On Rise Of The Guardians YMMV page, I saw Pitch being there. I haven't seen the movie yet, but I know that he doesn't count because he is also labeled as a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, and those two tropes are mutually exclusive.

@5297 I'm not totally clear about the Kayfabe stance behind the first death; it sounds to me like the "accident he bragged about afterwards" was the behind-the-scenes push to explain what he did on-screen. This is why I want a more thorough description of what exactly happened.

The nature of pro wrestling itself seems ill-suited to this sort of thing; I question just how many gimmicks could qualify, given propensity for Heel–Face Turn situations. Still, we should get to Monster.Professional Wrestling soon.

Though before that, I would like to wrap up Monster.Web Original. The posts in question are @5146, @5177, and @5201. I believe that Malachite of Suburban Knights and Red of NES Godzilla Creepypasta are still in controversy; the others have been settled. If so, I'm going to post in the next 24 hours a sample rewritten version of the page.

That said, I think we need a clear ruling on a taxonimic question - what's the difference here between Web Original and Fan Works? There are at least a few (like Sweet Tooth, Davik, and Mecha Sonic) belong in the latter (and I haven't cross-checked it yet to see if they are duplicate entries or not). Plus, I've got questions about others (like Malachite, actually - is he based on the Sailor Moon villain, or did they just borrow the name?).

@ Largo:

Skimming through A Thousand Splendid Suns quickly, I'm not entirely sure this counts as Pet the Dog for Rasheed. He spoils Zalmai, but he's never shown being overly affectionate or loving. Not any more than he was to his wives. He's pretty neglectful of his daughter, and if Wiki's to be believed he abuses Azisa horribly as well.Overall it seems Rasheed treats the kids as he does everything: Acting nice to the point he can control it. The second it disappoints him, he shows his true colors