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
![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_down_emoticon_3571.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
Shere Khan for not meeting the baseline heinous standard. Good movie, though.
Okay, here's my effort post for Clive Barker's Next Testament:
Who is he?
Wick, "The Father of Colors", is a psychopathic, hedonistic being who inspired the version of God in the Bible. He was discovered in the desert after being banished for 2000 years by a rich old man named Julian Edmond who believed that he was on a mission from God. The other important characters are Tristan (Julian's son), and Tristan's lover Elspeth, who both spend most of the comic running for their lives and bumping into crazy people.
What does he do?
When Julian brings Wick back to his encampment, Wick kills everyone there (a few dozen people) by lifting them high into the air and dropping them, and takes Julian's lover as a sacrifice, seemingly sucking out her soul, or something. Wick then explains to Julian that while he is essentially God, the Bible is mostly inaccurate. For example- he did flood the world, but only to see how it would look, and it was a different lord who stopped Abraham from killing his son under Wick's orders.
Julian and Wick return to Julian's mansion, where he holds a dinner party for many of his business partners, as well as Tristan and Elspeth. Wick is introduced to them all, and after sitting down to dinner and expressing his displeasure with humanity after his absence, brutally massacres them all (except for Tristan and Elspeth, who manage to escape) in various bloody ways. He also presumably kills the police that Tristan calls to the house after escaping.
Wick then starts doing the really large-scale stuff. In order to get the world's attention for his second coming, he causes every single aircraft in the world to fall out of the sky at once.
He then tells Julian to take him somewhere 'fun', so Julian drives him to Hollywood. Wick is disappointed by Hollywood, seemingly wanting humans to be more barbaric and hedonistic than they've become. He shuts down all communication devices in order to disconnect humans from each other, and says that he preferred the Earth when there were fewer people. He begins killing people in Hollywood and claims that he'd already killed four million people, and that there are 6.5 billion to go.
Julian and Wick go to San Francisco, where Wick decides to have his throne built, and seems interested in heroin addicts. He announces himself to the people of San Francisco, saying that he'll answer the people's questions and that all he wants is their 'unceasing love'. He says that there's no heaven, no reason for existence, and the reason why he doesn't end suffering in the world is because he 'couldn't care less'. He says that the Devil in the Bible is likely based on him, same as God, and when a woman tries to leave, he turns her into salt.
Wick decides to do some 'spring cleaning', and asks the crowd what place on earth they'd want to make disappear. An old junkie says the midwest, and Wick destroys the entire midwestern United States, narrowly missing Tristan and Elspeth.
Wick tries getting the people of San Francisco to build him a pyramid, but they have trouble moving the blocks and Wick gets annoyed, seeing modern humans as failures. He seems somewhat impressed by one young woman, who seems to understand his desires, and he takes her as his lover and decides to move to the 'old country'. He blots out the Sun and sets a swarm of locusts on the Earth which descend on San Francisco as he flies off to Europe with Julian and the young woman.
After taking part in a massive orgy, Wick takes Julian and the young woman to the Roman Colosseum, where he starts talking about bringing back humanity's old ways. When the woman questions him, he makes her disappear. Julian finally snaps at this, berating Wick for doing such horrible things and seemingly being incapable of love. Wick fatally injures Julian, and speaks to the whole world, telling them that he's going to start the apocalypse and that they only have a few hours to live, as he had traveled the world and found nothing worth saving.
As Wick kick-starts the apocalypse, Tristan and Elspeth discover while looking for answers in a library that there are actually two other lords other than Wick, named Unan and Filt. They call to them and they appear.
Wick then battles with his 'brothers', who are clearly nothing like him and want to stop him. During their fight, Wick sets an area with a population of 3 million to be destroyed as a distraction to prepare his final attack on the Earth.
Filt and Unan finally manage to subdue Wick, and give him a speech about how humanity continues to strive in spite of their flaws. Wick, seemingly being exiled once again, says that it won't stop him, and he'll do it all again when he returns.
Freudian Excuse, Offscreen Villainy, other mitigating factors?
No. No. No.
He does shed a tear as he’s being exiled, but at the same time, he’s promising he’ll return and do all of the same terrible shit over again. Not really a sympathetic moment.
Conclusion:
Absolute, easy keep.
edited 29th Apr '16 2:44:43 PM by Camberf
Easy yes to Wick.
...I think Barker may be in the running for most examples by a single writer there over multiple series and books.
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Wick. And I thought YHVH was the ultimate case of Adaptational Villainy for God...
Wick also has the district honor of being (I think?) the first candidate to flat-out scare me. That story sounds terrifying (but good)!
to Shere-Khan for failing heinous standard, but I'll give a to Wick
Well, with 6 and still counting, here is their write-up:
Malcolm Tallridge and John Bordinay, from season 1's "Ambush", are the heads of a dangerous militia group called the "Enhancing Law Enforcement", known for killing immigrants or anyone who remotely looks like one. Malcolm Tallridge serving as the leader, would order the hits, while John Bordinay, serving as his second-in-comand would carry them out without the slightest hesitation. Their actions would result in the deaths of over dozens of immigrant, including three children. They are also just as brutal and ruthless to their men, case in point when a member, Scott Reilly, brings in NCIS agent Callen into their fold without their knowledge, they have him killed without a second thought.
ACW I'm going to post this on the NCIS monster page. You can edit it over there.
edited 29th Apr '16 3:35:59 PM by G-Editor
Wick.
I'm probably gonna have to count how many CM's Baker's given us and compare that list to Stephen King's CM's.
edited 29th Apr '16 3:43:59 PM by Beast
"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."
How many for the Jag franchise does this make?
By the way, The Midnight Meat Train, also by Barker, has a villainous character who claims to be the inspiration for God as well. Is this also supposed to be Wick?
No, absolutely not. Having read the story, there's nothing in common here
Your friendly neighborhood stank goblin
@VeryMelon: Including this new duo? Twelve. Thirteen if you want to count Malcolm and John separately.
EDIT: Nevermind. Seems like Malcolm and John are already up there. Guess it's just eleven (or twelve if you count Malcolm and John separately).
edited 29th Apr '16 4:32:12 PM by Tyk5919
I write stories and shiz. You can read them here.
Wow, I definitely support a page for the Jag franchise now.
I think the creator with the most C Ms is Garth Ennis. ACW said he has made over 20.
Wild Child
Wick.
to Malcolm, John and Wick.
Tell me was The Hidden One from Sleepy Hollow ever discussed? I would look it up, but honestly I don't know how.
I'll Wick.
edited 29th Apr '16 6:12:58 PM by Scraggle
Caesar
to Malcolm, John, and Wick.
Anywho, I've a new keeper. Mark my words: This guy will go down in history as one of the most evil Young Adult CMs listed on this site.
You know you're a CM when the first line of one your journals is: Little girls are even more perfect when they bleed.
What's the work?
Graceling is the tale of a mystical land of seven kingdoms. In this world, some people are born with "Graces", special abilities that range from tree-climbing and expert juggling, to mind reading and clairvoyance. Monstrous creatures also exist, so yay.
Your parents know you have a Grace when, a few months or years after your birth, you manifest two different colored eyes.
Now, the first novel is Graceling (The arguably "Main" story), the second is Fire (The Prequel), and the third and final is Bitterblue (The Epilogue).
Who is he?
King Leck is TheCaligula-type king of one of the kingdoms, Monsea. He is...unpleasant, to say the least. He has the Grace of Compelling Voice
What's he done?
In Fire, Leck is born to two parents, the mother of whom dies during childbirth. By the age of 3, Leck had manifested his Grace of Compelling Voice, and, being insanely intelligent, could speak like a teenager by that same age.
When his father, Larch, realizes that, if anyone finds out about his son's Grace, they will take him away and give him to one of the reigning kings, Leck controls him into fleeing their village.
Despite the severely torturous conditions of their journey, Leck forces his father to continue on, carrying Leck all the way, while Leck forces him to give him nearly all of their rations.
They eventually find a village that Leck quickly takes control of, forcing people to teach him all kinds of skills, before they mysteriously "disappear". Leck also began torturing and killing small, helpless animals in his freetime, flaying them alive and such.
Close to a decade later, Leck's father finally realizes his son's true powers, and, though immediately falling back into line, he is still murdered by Leck for absolutely no reason.
Leck, now about 11 years old, begins wandering the kingdoms, taking control of people to get what he wants and torturing and killing any animals he comes across along the way, eventually taking control of an entire group of Monster smugglers and slave traders.
When Leck runs into the MC of this book, a teen named Fire, he immediately becomes enamored by her due to her abikity to resist his powers, and, after poisoning her, tries to manipulate her into joining him in his quest, mainly because he thought she was beautiful.
Fire rejects his advances, and, after realizing Leck has killed one of her LoveInterests, flees, at which point Leck kills two of his most loyal, and helpful, servants so far in anger.
Tracking her down, Leck again tries to manipulate her, but a freak accident ends with him falling down a ravine and losing one of his eyes, henceforth preventing anyone from being able to tell he has a Grace (Remember the different eye colors thing?)
Leck travels to the kingdom of Monsea, where he uses his abilities to sway the entire kingdom, Kind and Queen included, into loving him, until they make him their heir. The King and Queen die due to mysterious circumstances days later, and all of their closest advisors drown themselves in a nearby river. Hmmmmmm.....
In Graceling, Leck uses his Grace to manipulate his entire kingdom into loving and adoring him, while making himself a Villain with Good Publicity.
One of Leck's "Charities" is an animal shelter, which is regularly populated by hundreds of animals, all brought in horrifically injured and bleeding. Problem is, Monsea is a relatively peaceful kingdom, making anyone not having their mind clouded by his abilities realize that Leck isn't healing the animals. He himself is the one who injures the animals, horribly torturing them, then, once they are in his shelter, he uses his group of Healers to heal them....at which point he would torture them to near-death again.
Leck also has dozens of little girls assist him in his shelter. These girls are often injured themselves, and quite a few die under....mysterious circumstances. More on this later.
Leck has a wife, Asher, and a 10 year old daughter, Bitterblue, by now, and physically and sexually abuses the former often. Bitterblue is actually only his daughter by rape so....yeah.
Deciding it's time for him to....ah, "Get to know" Bitterblue better (Yes, it's creepy in-story, too), Leck begins trying to get her alone with him, however both Bitterblue and Asher, them having broke free of his control due to their love for one another, lock themselves in their room, and Leck is just eating this up.
Amused at the idea that they are resisting him, Leck begins sending in dead animals, sometimes even barely alive carved up cats and dogs that die in front of them while wailing, and also begins torturing, disfiguring, and possibly raping, the maids that bring them their food.
Asher and Bitterblue flee, and Leck ends up killing Asher, while Bitterblue escapes with the help of this book's MC, Katsa.
Katsa and Bitterblue flee to a friendly kingdom....only to discover Leck has arrived and taken control of the leaders of the kingdom, at which point he announces he's in charge now and will begin doing horrible things to any and everyone he chooses. He then tries to get his hands on Bitterblue, his pedophilic personakity continuing to bloom in the situation.
Katsa is able to kill Leck when he tries to reveal her Love Interest's, Poe's, Grace, which, due to hard-to-expkain-here reasons, would cause Poe immense pain throughout the rest of his life, and this determinatikn allows her to fling a knife at Leck amd strike him, ironically, in his mouth, ending his torment of the kingdoms.
And they all live happily ever after! Woohoo, yay.....except, what about thos hundreds of people that disappeared? What about the next book in the series? Oh, wait, looks like Leck's got more stuff revealed about him in Bitterblue, the third book! Well, it can't be that much worse than.....oh. Ooooooh nooooooo.....
In Bitterblue, Leck's daughter, Bitterblue, now 18 and the queen of Monsea, works to find out what happened to the hundreds of people that disappeared from Monsea duriung Leck's 35-year reign, along with the disappearances of dozens of little girls under the age of 13 from surrounding countrysides and such, and also undo all the chaos and destruction Leck's Compelling Voice reaked across the kingdom.
Investigating Leck's libraries, Bitterblue discovers that Leck loved himself a good, violent piece of art and/or literature, and he would often force people to sculpt/paint/write the stuff for him, at which point he would kill them.
One sculptor was raped by Leck, and she was forced to give the daughter she had from said rape away before Leck discovered it and killed it. The baby survived, but Leck killed the poor woman.
The truth is then finally revealed about what happened to those hundreds of people and little girls that disappeared: Leck had a secret, and huge dungeon he called his "hospital", where he woulf perform horrifying experiments on people in an attempt to replicate Grace abilties, doing things like ripping out Grace-eyeballs and placing them in other's skulls. These experiments often resulted in death.
Also, for his own amusement, Leck would have dozens of women and little girls raped into pregnancy, then perform more experiments and dissections on them, which ended in the poor souls' deaths.
Oh, and Leck didn't do the raping himself. No, he coerced some of his " advisors" to do it while he watched, enjoying the screams of terror and such as the men would slowly realize what they were doing, before being controlled by Leck into continuing to rape the victims and forcing them to enjoy it.
A few of the women and little girls Leck kept for himself, of course, raping and torturing them to his heart's content, sometimes forcing his advisors to watch what he did to the women as punishment when his advisors failed him, forcing them to want to join in, then slashing their faces when they tried to fulfill those wants.
Oh, and Leck kept all the corpses stacked up in a neat little pile throughout the decades, loving the smell of death and decay that reaked from them.
His advisors turn out to be the "villains" of the final book, as they are doing their darnest to silence any and all investigations about Leck's legacy, because they desperately want to forget what he did....and, even more so, what he made them do.
Bitterblue manages to figure out everything, though she keeps it most to herself and her closest friends, due to the absolute monstrousness of the whole situation, and begins working doubletime to fix the kingdom and wipe the ugly, evil, decades+long stain her father left on the kingdom.
Yeah, bad dude.
BWAHAHAHAHA.....no. The guy was a Creepy Child since he was, like, 2, so creepy, in fact, that the midwife (I think?) fled caring for him due to being so unsettled by him.
Redeeming features?
Nah.
He seems to want Fire to join him in the second book, Fire, but this is never portrayed as anything beyond lust and a desire to control of the few people who can genuinely resist him.
He also had a really weird thing with his daughter, Bitterblue (Who he seems to want to be his successor) where he acts almost creepily loving and caring one minute, before smacking her on the face and promising to force her to remove her own mother's limbs if she disobeys him...with that same creepy disposition. So, while he might jhave treated her "ok" most of the time, he ultimately was physically, emotionally, and psychologicall abusive toward her, and, if the implications are true (Heavy implications, mind you), he even wanted to sexually abuse her.
TLDR; No redeeming features, the guy's a prick.
Heinoiusness?
This is something of a Crapsack World, where 6 out of the 7 kingdoms are ruled by jerks. One somewhat notable villain was a loon who raped women, and would kill them if he they got pregnant for no real reason, though he doesn't count because he has a real (If twisted) love for his daughter.
Leck, on the other hand, is a monstrous psychopath who makes even the aforementioned crazy look like a saint in comparison. Everyone in-story acknowledges that Leck is one of the most evil things their world has dealt with in a long time, and it shows.
Heck, the dude's been dead in the third novel for 8 years, and the kingdom of Monsea is still in horrible disrepair. Oy vey.
Final Verdict?
Freaking Kilgrave as a tyrannical ruler with a penchant for pedophilia, rape, and Cold-Blooded Torture.
Easy from the Ravok.
edited 29th Apr '16 9:07:44 PM by Ravok
WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!
So.. this is a YA series you said?
Leck, obviously.
to Leck.
Wild Child
King Leck.
Caesar
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
From the trope page: The Graceling Realm, or The Seven Kingdoms Trilogy, is a Young Adult fantasy trilogy
From the Wikipedia page: Graceling is a young adult fantasy novel
I don't understand it, either. This is some jacked up stuff, I tell you.
Oh, I forgot a few things in my write-up. First, Leck's "Hospital" was built so that the reverberations of his victims' screams would be maximized, which he obviously loved.
Second of all, Leck did the same thing to his torture victims that he did to allk those animals; When they were nearly dead, he would force his Healers to bring them back to full strength, before doing it all over again.
edited 29th Apr '16 9:20:11 PM by Ravok
WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!
Lizzid people!
Leck. Holy crap 
Yes to Leck
So, my two anime examples...the two Big Bad villains of the anime Zoids that encompasses Zoids: Chaotic Century and its sequel Guardian Force, concerning a young man named Van Flyheit who lives on the world Zi...in his time, wars are fought with Zoids, creatures who are a cross between organic and technology, with Van coming into position of an Organoid named Zeke and a mysterious girl named Fiona who is later revealed to be one of the last survivors of a race called the Ancient Zoidians...
Now, a big part of season 1 is a war between the Helic Republic and the Guylos Empire...it's revealed that neither side is evil. In fact, the war is largely manipulated by the Evil Chancellor of the Empire, Gunther Prozen who has his own agenda in mind...that said, here we go..
Who Is He and What's He Done?
Prozen is the power hungry minister of the empire and its second in command...in the past, Prozen was hunting for a special Organoid named Shadow, and ordered the deaths of the Republic witnesses. Van's father, Dan Flyheit, sacrificed his life for the others, but Prozen captured a survivor: a boy named Raven. Prozen raised him as a brutal assassin and tool of his will. In the present, when the Emperor dies, his only heir is his grandson, a young, idealistic boy named Rudolph. Instead of trying to convert Rudolph as a pawn, Prozen simply tried to kill him.
A loyal mercenary named Russo instead spirits Rudolph away in the nick of time and Prozen wastes no time seizing control of the empire while attempting to 'find' Rudolph and 'restore' him (really intending to kill him and frame his enemies). He sends Raven to deal with the matter, and in a rather nasty twist, sends out soldiers to look for their beloved young emperor...and has Raven kill all the soldiers there so he can plausibly cover for himself while he devotes forces to try to wipe out the Helic Republic.
It's revealed Prozen's ultimate plan is to awaken the Death Saurer: a weapon of destruction with a mind of its own that wiped out the Ancient Zoidians. Upon releasing it, Prozen bonds with it and wipes out most of Guylos's capital, intending on destroying much of the planet Zi and enslaving what's left to his will. The heroes manage to defeat him and Prozen seemingly perishes in the ensuing fireball.
Except, Prozen survives by merging with parts of the Death Saurer and names himself the Dark Kaiser, manipulating terrorist attacks throughout season 2 o the Death Saurer may be reawakened. Now believing himself to be the incarnation of the Death Saurer, Prozen wants to awaken it and have Fiona reawaken the original Zoids' genesis machine to create a new race of Zoids to serve him as he wipes out organic life.
However, Prozen is out-gambitted by the second proposal here, and is absorbed into the Death Saurer to serve as part of it....I'll cover the rest next up...with Hiltz.
Who Is He?
Hiltz is the Big Bad of season 2. A terrorist and seeming anarchist out to disrupt the hard-won peace, Hiltz is first seen when he sends a man with an Organoid after Van. After the man loses, he begs Hiltz for a second chance, who sarcastically responds "no can do, pal!" and kicks him off the cliff they're on.
Now, it's soon revealed that Hiltz is one of the last three Ancient Zoidians. He controls an organization of many, many mercenaries and uses them in terrorist attacks to disrupt the peace that's followed in the timeskip since Prozen's original defeat. Hiltz wishes to return his race to power, which is really a fancy way of saying he wants power for a reason I'll detail below.
Hiltz manipulates the other Ancient Zoidian on his team, a young woman named Reese, who has a genuinely sad backstory of losing her only friend, and when Reese outlives her usefulness and correctly guesses so, Hiltz cheerfully informs her "you read my mind!" and attempts to vaporize her. Revealing he has created a new Zoid known as the Death Stinger, a genuine superweapon, Hiltz begins blasting at cities and civilian locations. When the good guys fight him off, Hiltz cheerfully informs them he's making straight for the Guylos Empire...and he's going to wipe out any town, village or settlement he sees along the way.
When the Death Saurer is revived, Hiltz hijacks it from Prozen, absorbing Prozen after informing him he's just deluded in believing he's the Death Saurer's chosen, and then attempts to drain Fiona and Van's lives to fuel the Death Saurer's power, declaring he's going to wipe out all life on Zi and restart the Zoidian race. At the end, the good guys destroy the Death Saurer, killing Hiltz and Prozen as well. Oh, yeah, and in flashback, it turns out Hiltz was the one who killed Raven's parents. The guy's an absolute sadist in how he loves toying with his victims and opponents, too.
In heinousness, I don't think either overshadows the other. Both have flat out genocidal goals and wide-reaching murderous plots. Neither has anything resembling an excuse or redeeming qualities. While Hiltz claims he wants the ancient Zoidians back in charge, he shows he cares nothing for Reese or Fiona as both are tools to be used and discarded at will.
edited 29th Apr '16 10:07:25 PM by Lightysnake
edited 29th Apr '16 2:25:43 PM by ACW
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts