Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

I re-added it back to the drafts page; I'm not gonna include it with this week's batch. Plus, there's one thing that makes me wary, even though I voted

That was already brought up; I don't see the issue here. If there should be any issue, it should be how he is defeated. I mean, after we had discussed Underground!Robotnik and deemed that he didn't qualify due to the narrative not taking him seriously enough due to his defeat. So, why should Rowan be treated any differently?

edited 30th Jul '16 8:04:13 AM by AustinDR

As someone who's seen Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (or the new Ghostbusters) and thought the movie was far better than expected (though not nearly as good as the first one), I think Rowan barely counts because yes, there's the movie's tone, but then how he plays against it though.

Also, I think his entry should make mention of possessing Abby and nearly throwing Holtzman out the window as well as trying to drag Abby down with him in the end.

edited 30th Jul '16 12:01:15 PM by futuremoviewriter

The whole "defeat" thing is WAY different between Underground!Robotnik and Rowan. Underground!Robotnik was cut because, in an episode in the middle of the series (NOT the last episode, mind you), Sonic is captured by Robotnik. When Sonic escapes, he makes fun of Robotnik and just walks out, leaving Robotnik to get sprayed in the face by own dust-machine-thingy until they next meet.

This truly showed how serious (Or not) the narrative treated Robotnik. Sonic had the chance to, at least, kick the crap out of him, but he didn't. He thought that, even after everything Robotnik's done, all he deserved at the moment was getting sprayed with dust.

This is so different from Rowan's defeat the two shouldn't even be compared. Rowan spent the whole film as a sadistic prick who the Ghostbusters were always one step behind of, and, when he was trying to hold on to a group of buildings to prevent himself from being sucked into the portal, the Ghostbusters blast at him, happen to hit him in the groin, then comment "We were aiming there, right?"

These are entirely different scenarios: Many of Robotnik's defeats served to show how, in Sonic's eyes, and the narrative's, when it came down to it, his "karma" on an episode-to-episode basis was just fine as "getting humiliated". Rowan still gets a legitimate defeat in the end by being sucked into the ghost portal, the way it goes about just HAPPENS to be (In some people's eyes) humorous.

We've qualified villains with WAY more humiliatingly humorous defeats, so I don't see the problem there with Rowan.

I remember the scene where Rowan froze all the police and military in odd positions. The full cut scene would have had him lead them in a thriller like dance number, and I wonder if that would have been silly enough to cut him. If the scene is left uncut on the DVD version, in which DV Ds often get more than what was in the theatrical version, would that all affect him counting in the movie?

I agree. Rowan sounds closer to being like Archibald Snatcher. Who is also a Laughably Evil antagonist in a comedic work, with a arguably funny defeat however despite their quirks are still very much played seriously and are viewed as irredeemably vile by both the characters and narrative.

Underground!Robotnik was also voted down due to showing some Benevolent Boss tendencies, with his Bad Boss tendencies, the exact same that were played seriously in in the Sat AM show, were Played for Laughs.

edited 30th Jul '16 9:14:32 AM by ANewMan

We can just mention the theatrical cut. We do that with Terrence Wynn; we mention the extended cut for Blackheart.

@ 64876 Ambar Sonof Deshar, yeah, I think one of the unwritten rules of this thread is don't propose a character who is a total racist caricature, Claw seems to count under that.

There are lots of thoroughly racist works from the early 20th century that I wouldn't bother to bring up here. Though I think there can be some works that are somewhat problematic I think could still work for this thread, it really depends on how bad the work is. I have heard Temple of Doom was banned in India for being offensive, for example.

edited 30th Jul '16 10:35:18 AM by Overlord

I have another 2000 AD villain from a one-shot story called Psi-Testers, so he's a pretty minor villain. Still, he manages to cross the line in a major way.

Who is Cyclops? What has he done?

He's a mutant with Eye Beams who... no, of course not. Some set-up: Humans have colonized the solar system, and some Humans Are Psychic in the Future. The government has enacted a law whereby a person accused of a crime can ask for a "psi-test", where a psychic reads their mind and declares them guilty or innocent based on their readings, with the verdict being final. Obviously, usually only innocent people are willing to take this test.

On the Luna City colony, a criminal named Cyclops O'Keefe and his gang arrive to commit robberies. After an armed robbery of the Luna Bank (not without causing several casualties, btw), Cyclops is arrested and he opts to be psi-tested by a meek psychic named Oscar... Meek. It turns out that he has rigged a laser bomb to destroy the city dome unless Oscar finds him innocent. Shocked, Oscar renders a false verdict to save the lives of his fellow citizens. However, Cyclops goes back on his deal to disarm the bomb and escapes back to Earth, knowingly condemning a million people to death while laughing in Oscar's face.

Oscar admits the truth to the authorities and eventually they manage to find the bomb just in time, forcing the police captain to disarm the bomb by performing a Heroic Sacrifice. Oscar goes to Earth to find Cyclops and his gang partying in a casino, where he uses his powers to force Cyclops to shoot the other members of his gang right in the open so he'll be arrested.

Freudian Excuse or redeeming traits?

None are shown. Though he is briefly shocked when he shoots his gang, it's clearly just a "what the hell just happened?" reaction.

Conclusion?

For a 2-episode story, I'd say he definitely manages to stand out. Being a violent gangster would be one thing, but intentionally murdering a million people just to be a dick...

edited 30th Jul '16 10:58:20 AM by Morgenthaler

Well, he seems pleasant. Cyclops.

Cyclops. That's special of him to do.

Why not? on Cyclops.

• I'll do this week's batch tomorrow morning.
  • I'll hold off on Rowan until next week or so.
• MGD, you have my okay to rewrite Soraya. I sent a PM to both the original proposer and Largo, but got no response.

Cyclops.

Yeah, there's no hard and fast rules about it, and some characters (like the ones from the aforementioned Indiana Jones film) can skirt the edges, but generally if we know we're looking at racial caricature, we try not to dignify it by putting it up.

It helps in this regard that in a lot of truly racist works, the authors treat all Africans/Asians/Arabs/insert-group-they-don't-like as if they were Always Chaotic Evil, and thus even within the warped morality of their own racism-based worlds the characters could not count.

to Rowan. He talked big but he generally only did silly things with his powers. His big show of villainy was making people do the Thriller dance.

And now I vote no

All of a sudden I feel more confident in my no vote from yesterday.

BTW, the count is now 17-12 for Rowan.

edited 30th Jul '16 1:05:16 PM by VeryMelon

If I cared enough about Rowan counting, I'd argue how that's a load of crap and that that Dance scene wasn't even in the film proper, but I honestly couldn't care less if Rowan counts so I'm done debating him. If the 'Yes' votes stay ahead, the drafts page has my write-up. If not, I won't lose even a minute of sleep.

Moving on, 'Yes' to yet another A.D. 2000 villain.

If it's not in the film proper, I don't see where the issue is.

Jeez. Never seen a candidate cause that much of a division on the thread since Not Important. Anyway, since I haven't seen the film yet, I'm switching from to abstain.

edited 30th Jul '16 1:22:43 PM by Awesomekid42

to Cyclops.

Okay then, here is my first attempt.

• María la del barrio: Soraya Montenegro initially appeared just an arrogant wealthy woman who wanted to marry Luis Fernando. But upon Maria’s arrival she reveals her true nature. Envious of Luis attraction to Maria Soraya first tried to seduce him with her Nana Calixta's black magic; then slept with him while he was drunk and faked pregnancy forcing him to marry her. She also tried to poison Maria and shot her lover Osvaldo Treviño to prevent him from revealing her plans. Soraya treats everyone less fortunate than her with absolute contempt (even her own mother), and kills her underlings without a second thought. She seemingly dies from falling through a window, but is later revealed to have survived and fled to America for fifteen years. There she marries Oscar Montalban, a rich man who cared for her during her recovery. She rewards his kindness by murdering him to gain his money, and returns to Mexico pretending to be remorseful. Soraya begins regularly abusing her disabled step daughter Alicia and Alicia’s elderly godmother Esperanza. She delights in finding creative ways to torture them, such leaving Alicia alone in a room filled with tarantulas. To get revenge against Maria she starts seducing Maria’s teenage son Nandito, regularly getting him dangerously drunk. Discovering that Alicia and Nandito had fallen for each other, she attempted to kill them and Esperanza. Soraya then murders her own mother (having previously abandoned her to live on the streets), and frames Nandito for the crime leading to Maria being imprisoned. Upon discovering Maria survived the prison fire, Soraya kidnaps her and personally attempts to burn her to death. An elitist sociopath Soraya was the only villain to never express any remorse for of her crimes.

I think Underground!Robotnik was more divisive.

So, thanks to Ravok for his assistance here...I had an other example I believe qualifies from The Fionavar Tapestry trilogy besides Big Bad Rakoth Maugrim...

And his name is Metran, the treacherous First Mage of the High King of Brennin, and who functions largely as The Evil Genius of Rakoth Maugrim's Team Evil. First appearing as a senile, crippled mage, it turns out Metran is far smarter and far, far more dangerous than he's given credit for.

Who Is He And What's He Done?

As the First Mage of Brennin, Metran is secretly working to free Rakoth Maugrim, which makes him automatic party to attempted omnicde to begin with. Just throwing that one out there, given Maugrim's not-exactly-hidden goals of "annihilate all of Fionavar."

Once Maugrim is free, Jennifer, one of the heroines, is being escorted by a large amount of soldiers through the kingdom for her safety. Metran's treachery ensures they're slaughtered and Jennifer captured and delivered to Maugrim, who proceeds to rape and mentally torture her. Something Metran knew would happen, and doesn't really seem to mind. Metran isn't seen again in the first book.

The second, however? Metran takes a more active role as one of Maugrim's chief warleaders, along with Uathach, The Brute of Team Evil. Metran's mastery of sorcery is probably the best weapon Maugrim's armies have at this juncture and he proceeds to use an artifact known as the Cauldron of Khath Meigol to create an unnatural winter over the land of Cader Sedat. The result is the ports freeze and crops die, killing many, many people by starvation or frost. Oh, and the way Metran powers the cauldron? He takes hundreds of loyal minions of the svart alfars (a race of small, nasty little creatures but still) and uses their life force to fuel the cauldron's magic. Then he simply revives them. Then drains them of life again. Over. And over. And over.

I should also mention mages of Fionavar also require a 'Source' to connect to them: a living being who channels the magic, much like a Familiar. Metran's source is a man named Denbarra, his sister-son (IE: nephew). The cost of this magic is enormous, leaving Denbarra a broken shell of a man unable to do anything but provide Metran with more power.

He then uses the Cauldron to create a 'death rain' all over the land of Eridu, raining down literal poison over everything and everyone. The vast majority of Eridu's population dies as a result. When our heroes confrotn Metran, he's in the process of moving the death rain to the High Kingdom of Fionavar, planning to annihilate the whole thing. In the ensuing battle, the cauldron is destroyed, the explosion killing Metran as well. Maugrim's presumed reaction "Eh, plan B, then."

Heinous Standard?

Okay, Maugrim is a dark god, demonic rapist and Omnicidal Maniac who's committed just about every crime there's a name for and then some. Galadan the Wolflord, his right-hand man is equally on board with this "Let's destroy reality!" thing. (Galadan, however is more a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds who's given a shot at redemption at the end he'll presumably take...ok, his excuse is ridiculously flimsy and amounts to "a human stole my girlfriend and she died, ALL THAT LIVES MUST DIE!"), and Uathac is a brutish thug who relishes battle and destruction. That said,...Metran stands out pretty well. Of all of them, he's the only human from Fionavar to actively betray his own people and work towards the end of everyone's life, and he's remarkably proactive about the whole thing. He assists in Maugrim's worst crimes (particularly Jennifer's rape, where Maugrim constantly takes the forms of her father, lovers, etc. to destroy everything resembling joy for her). Metran's usage of hundreds of his own servants for his magic, his mistreatment of his own nephew, and his horrific attacks on two separate kingdoms with massive body counts push him well over the edge.

Freudian Excuse?

Nope. Metran just wants power and hates Fionavar for....honestly, he never really gives anything resembling an adequate excuse, let alone care for another individual.

Conclusion?

I think he's an easy keep. What say we?