Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

Yeah, that's more or less what I mean, although I was also thinking of Knight or Tautological Templars when I referred to purpose-driven CMs.

I think, with the choppy airing schedule, potentials from Steven Universe might take a while to close their arcs. Season 2 has ended, though (and, thanks to Cartoon Network's weird idea of scheduling, it was a while back), so anyone from there is, I think, fair game.

No, not anyone on it is "fair game". Steven Universe is even more idealistic than MLP: FIM (which is on the never again list), most of the major villains so far have ended up being redeemed. That's not to say all of them will follow this theme but at the moment the show has done nothing to prove that it can have a pure evil character with no altruistic qualities.

Let's stow the conversation on SU until Thursday, please?

It depends. That's like asking if it is worse for a villain to be a giggling, sadistic madman who takes deep pleasure in doing bad things, or a stone-cold sociopath devoid of any emotion.

Both are equally bad and can be written very terrifyingly.

The only potential CM's in Steven Universe i can think about are the Diamonds who are ruthless Bad Boss but then it's clear that their arcs are not over as we only saw them once each.

edited 25th May '16 1:52:39 PM by Silverblade2

I noticed something; on Return Of The Jedi YMMV page, Palpatine is listed as a CM. While there is no doubt he qualifies, does he really qualify for this individual movie (he was cut from ESB YMMB)? I thought he qualified thanks to the prequels and EU. In ROTJ, he is pretty much an Orcus on His Throne.

In ESB he only appears in one dialogue scene, naturally he was cut. In ROTJ he does enough imO, trying to sway Luke to the dark side while gloating that all of his friends will die, trying to make him kill his loyal servant Vader, as well as sadistically torturing Luke with his lightning.

@ACW

I think this quote sums it up nicely: "1993 was the year Superman died and Venom got his own comic book." The 90s were a very bad time for comics, particularly for heroes who weren't lethal enforcers and/or complete dicks. This is the era that had Hal Jordan murder all the other Green Lanterns. That had Batman temporarily replaced by Azrael. That saw Rob Liefeld make vast amounts of money marketing overly-muscled guys whose outfits were covered in pouches. The era when every new character seemed to have some variant of "death" or "blood" in their names (I'm still amazed no one went all out and named someone "Deathblood the Bloody Death". It would have fit right in).

Point I'm driving at—comics inevitably go through terrible periods of horrific "new" ideas before someone sane takes over and the status quo reasserts itself. Whatever bad decisions are being made right now they'll eventually be thrown on the dustbin of history, alongside Bearded Idiot at Earth's End, Young Blood, and my personal favourite, Snowflame, the man's whose powers were fueled by cocaine (technically from the 80s but still very much a Dark Age character).

"Snowflame, the man's whose powers were fueled by cocaine..." Wow.

That's something I've been wondering for a while. Is it okay to have CM entries on individual works the villain appeared in? For example, A Death In The Family has an entry for the Joker that covers his misdeeds in that particular story and Deadpool covers Bullseye as he appears in the Deadpool comics (albeit in the page's First-Person style). Is it okay to do this so long as the villain has a legitimate entry elsewhere?

I think it's fine.

Just a reminder for discussion dates, anyone can add more examples to the list. There are plenty of other shows or games or what-have-you that I know nothing about that may or may not have a CM in it (especially when it comes to western animations and anime/manga). Feel free to add a discussion date for any particular TV show if it's not already listed.

So, does anybody agree or disagree about Sekto?

@ Ambar, I think Spider-Man got it the worst, in the early 90s they turned into some brooding asshole who calls himself "The Spider" and hit his wife once. Thankful no one mentions that again, that is the worst characterization Spidey ever got, it seems like it doesn't mesh with any past or future version of the character.

Regarding the Dragon Prince write-up two pages back. I would suggest removing the reference to Ianthe throwing people off the walls during the plague, because the story's protagonist (Prince Rohan) makes it absolutely clear to the reader that he thoroughly understood why she did it and would have done the same thing.

The reason Ianthe threw infected people off the castle walls was because she was trying to isolate her sons so that they would not contract the disease. When Rohan muses over what she had done, he reflects on the fact that the law would interpret her act as murder and his act as justice (he had seven men put to death for trying to profit off the plague's cure), but it doesn't change the fact he completely understood what she'd done and would have done it himself if it meant protecting his own family.

Since we've got in-universe sympathy with some of Ianthe's actions, those examples shouldn't be used to describe her as a CM.

It's also worth bearing in mind that Rolestra was driven by vengeance that had consumed him. Ianthe and Rolestra both separately muse that the reason why he is such an effective bastard is because he learned how to harness his hatred. When Ianthe learns this lesson for herself, her villainy ramps up, too.

I'm not disagreeing with them being CMs, I'm just saying some of the examples shouldn't be used because of in-universe sympathy for the actions those characters took.

edited 25th May '16 3:53:46 PM by Wyldchyld

Did Ianthe care about her sons?
Also, the Exo Squad trio needs to be revamped (especially Ketzer's, who needs to be expanded, and Draconis's is unwieldy).

edited 25th May '16 4:23:14 PM by ACW

Hey guys its me again I heard that none of the characters from Far Cry Primal count due to Ull having redeeming qualities and Batari for not being heinous enough, though I agree with the former, I would have to disagree with the latter. We didn't have a effort post on Batari on that matter, and given an event like this happen where Serrator wouldn't be labeled as a CM until much later due to someone saying "No villain surpasses Xandred in terms of evil" so I I felt the need to write an effort post on her. Well here it is.

Who Is She? What Has She Done?

Batari is the Izila High Priestess, their leader. She is along with Ull, is the primary antagonist of Far Cry Primal, but unlike Ull, her crimes are much more destructive and personal. She is a prideful tyrant consumed by vanity and paranoia who believes herself to be superior to the Wenja, Udam, or any other tribe and she would proves this "superiority" by either burning her enemies alive and any other surroundings or keep them as slave and work them to the bone and then burn them alive. She has done this to many tribes, claiming victims in the hundreds, one of those victims is Tensay, The Wenja's shaman, and it is why both Wenja and Udam despises her and her tribe and given that the latter are cannibals that is saying something. Not even family members are safe from her treachery, as her son Krati, attempted a rebellion against his mother, seeing her as the power hungry tyrant she is, and her response was to not only destroy the rebellion but to burn her OWN son alive. When she saw Takkar free the Wenja from her grasp, she tries to recruit him to her tribe, but when he refuses she treats him like any other enemy and throws him into a fire pit in an attempt to kill him.

Freudian Excuse?

Basically her excuse is that she believe herself to be a descendant of the sun goddess, Suxli, and claim that her action are in service to Suxli, but give that the destruction she brings about which is rather a bit much even by Izila standards, and that she was more than willing to off and burn alive any of her tribe members for even questioning her beliefs, it is clear that she is only serving her own agenda and no one else.

Redeeming Qualities?

She claims that ever since killing her son, she is haunted by the fact that her son's spirit might come back with vengeance. This doesn't really have anything to do with the fact that she shows remorse for love for her son and more to do with the fact his actual spirit might come to usurp her position as he tried to do when he was alive.

Heinousness?

The heinous standard is rather high in this game as the Udam tribe eats people, but given that the Udam didn't really chose to eat people but as a means of trying to survive extinction and and are treated with sympathy, and that they are the Lesser of Two Evils as oppose to the Izila tribe Batari commands where she has them burn lands containing people, enslave people only to burn them later on, killing her own son just because he rebelled against her and that all of the atrocities she and her tribe perform are all done on free will and as a means to show how superior they are and as a matter in fact it disgust the Udam so much that they claim to hate the Izila, more specifically Batari more then they do with the Wenja. So, I think Batari counts.

Final Verdict

I would give her a . What about you guys?

My interpretation was that Ianthe 'loved' her children for the power/status they would bring her, just like Mireva later 'cares' about them. She encouraged competition and bitterness between them just like Rolestra encouraged her and her sisters to compete with each other.

Nice to see someone else has read the books, I thought I was the only one.

@ACW: I, Ravok, am currently watching through Exosquad, and, if necessary (And with the original writer-upper's(?) consent), will gladly re-write the entries.

Yes, Ianthe did care about her sons - and Feruche (her kingdom), for that matter.

Ianthe isn't another Voldemort. She does have genuine feelings. And she learns how to wield her emotions as a weapon. That's why she becomes so dangerous once she learns and understands the power of hatred.

So, she loves her sons. But she also knows - completely understands - the value of ambition, competition and power. As a result, her sons become part of the game of power being played in the story. This isn't viewed as a contradiction. It's a story about politics and power struggles, after all, where the worth of people is in the power they can wield or the use they are to the people who wield the power.

That's why I think it's fair to point out that a character like Ianthe can have genuine feelings, but they do not act as the kind freudian excuse that would disqualify her as a monster. Those feelings give her strength, resolve and focus. They empower her villainy, not detract from it.

edited 25th May '16 4:50:42 PM by Wyldchyld

Well hold on now. If she did, in fact, love her sons, then she can't count. Unless she later ends up not caring about them (like PhiSat seems to think she dies). Do Rolestra or Mireva have any loved ones?

So, what do you guys think about Batari?

Abstaining on Batari for now.

I have a candidate: Dr. Freudstein (yes, that's his real name) from The House By The Cemetery.

Who is he? What does he do?

Dr. Freudstein was a scientist doing research on degeneration on human cells and mitosis. Eventually, his desire for answers led him to begin experimenting on people For Science!. Through his experiments, he discovered a way to use human cells and organs to prolong his own life, and realized he could use this discovery to make himself immortal. He killed his wife and daughter and used their bodies to prolong his own life. After that, he went to live in the basement of his house, knowing that with his family dead and him nowhere to be found, he would be thought dead too. He proceeded to kill anyone who came to live in his house and use their bodies for himself. As a result of the experiments, he became a rotting, zombie like being with superhuman strength and lost his ability to speak and the need to eat and drink.

By the time of the main story, it has been about 150 years since his supposed death. The film opens with him killing a young woman after having killed her boyfriend. The Boyle family moves in after the previous owners, Dr. Peterson and his wife, were killed by Freudstein. The son, Bob, sees the ghost of Freudsteins daughter, Mae, who warns him to convince his family to leave, though they do not believe him.

Freudstein kills the neighbor Laura Gittleson after she lets herself in whle the family is out. Freudstein also kills the babysitter, Ann. When Norman (the father) finds a cassette left by Peterson, detailing how he found his wife killed by Freudstein along with the corpses of children (why Freudstein did not destroy that cassette is anyone's guess), he comes to believe that there is something weird going on, and after doing some research, he discovers the history of Freudstein. Norman races home to get his family out of the house. When he arrives, he finds his wife Lucy trying to free Bob after he got trapped in the basement with Freudstein. The couple breaks down the door, but Freudstein kills them both. Mae and her mother, Mary Freudstein, manage to rescue Bob, and the film abruptly ends.

Heniousness?

He experimented on numerous people, killed his family (who we see as ghosts), and murdered numerous families over the period of roughly a century and a half, and he planned to go on doing it for the ret of eternity (or at least until Earth's end, which will happen one day when the sun goes out) so that he could continue to live.

Any mitigating factors?

He does not speak (his vocal cords and whatever else people use to talk likely rotted away over time as his body decayed due to his experiments), but he does have a clear motive. While it is not clear how many people he killed, it was enough for him to live roughly 150 years. I'm not sure if his past of experimenting on people can be counted against him, what with it being offscreen, but he has numerous victims, some of which are children.

As Phi Sat says, caring about her sons didn't stop her using them as pawns. They were a means to an end, and her caring about them was pretty incidental because it didn't interfere with her strategy to conceive sons to obtain a route to power.

Emotions empower villains in this story. Roelstra and Ianthe stand above others not because they lack emotions but because they are so self-aware they know how to manipulate and abuse the emotions of others. And they enjoy it.

It might be worth hearing from Phi Sat because how much Ianthe cared about her sons is probably interpretational and he seems to have a slightly different view. I view the idea of her being a mother as part of the threat of the story - if she is capable of raising children well, then if her plan to conceive Rohan's heir works, it means her influence over the child would be far greater than Rohan's and the Desert Kingdom's power would shift from Rohan's family to Roelstra's by virtue of Ianthe's influence. The ability to care is a weapon that absolutely must be used for political gain.

edited 25th May '16 5:56:41 PM by Wyldchyld