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
Lost in Space
Heinous is both comparative and absolute. Brainwashing people to turn them into slave armies is horrific, to be sure, but if that's the minimum standard you need to meet to be considered a serious villain in a series, it's not outstanding. I'm not talking about any specific cases, just giving general principles.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Okay I got a computer again. Voting against The Man in Black and the Man in Black's mother, mostly for the reasons Shaoken outlined, but also because the two of them really aren't that heinous in comparison to other events in the series. The Smoke Monster/MIB has murdered quite a few people, but did not go to the lengths of gassing an entire community and stealing their children away from them (non-CM Ben Linus), which is easily the most heinous act depicted in Lost's canon.
Oh in super robot wars that's pretty outstanding. (Well. In the Original Generation games anyways which follow their own storyline instead if being a crossover.) the fact her victims are all children adds an extra dose of heinous for me as well.
I confess I'm unfamiliar with Lost so I'd have o follow the lead on it here
Yes, Mind Rape is heinous. But Discord wasn't disqualified for not being heinous, I remember - more for not being completely evil and having a strong Freudian Excuse.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Mind raping kids to serve as cannon fodder strikes me as really heinous yes
We really shouldn't be arguing if an act is heinous, just if it's heinous enough for the setting. That being said, I really can't see an instance where forcibly rooting through someone's mind for a dark purpose wouldn't be, at the very least, traumatizing.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Depending entirely on how it's portrayed, yes. If characters are mind controlled, recover from it and are fine, then we probably can't qualify it, however personally horrifying we may find the notion to be. If the work however makes a detailed study of just how awful the experience is, then we can qualify it. Some series will make Mind Rape seem very much like actual rape, and in those cases I think it should absolutely be a qualifier.
@Footsteps
I mentioned the mentally handicapped thing for TC because it raises the question as to how aware he is of his actions and their morality or lack thereof. Previous handicapped examples that we've added, like Cy Bradstone, have been qualified in spite of their handicaps, because while they are of below average intelligence, they can still distinguish right from wrong. I'm not sure that's the case with TC, especially given his apparent dependence on Jody for instructions.
I myself am honestly witholding judgement on Lamashtu until I can get my hands on a collection of Mesopotamian myth. I only did the write-up to see what others thought. That said, I don't think we should rule out mythological and religious examples in general because of that. We ruled we could keep Haman a long time ago, and there was little in the way of objection to the Tantalus and Angra Mainyu examples I suggested. I like the idea of giving them their own subpage so that we can, as previously discussed, lock it on creation, but at the very least those examples could be added to the literature page, since they are based on written versions of their faiths' mythos'.
As for the Satan thing, I wouldn't worry too much. No matter what things he gets up to in various apocrypha and folklore, we can't qualify him without a written down version, and his bodycount is well below that of the mythos' big good, or even other villains like Haman and the Pharoah; not to mention that in Revelations, the book were he does the most awful stuff, said Big Good's hand is firmly holding the leash.
I'm inclined to treath myth/religious examples as a subset of literature. If there's a written version that we can explore, we can qualify them.
edited 8th Jan '13 9:16:09 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar
I should note the time we see Setme actually doing her thing it's portrayed as utterly horrible and traumatic to the victim. Another kid spends years with what can be best described as PTSD after leaving the School
@ 6606
NO, no, no! Discord DID NOT have a Freudian Excuse. I am not arguing for him. Let's make it absolutely clear; I don't think that he counts, I strongly oppose it and anyone who argues about it should be banned! I am not sure why was he disqualified, but these are my reasons why I don't think he counts.
1. YES. I don't think that he was truly heinous. I am with Fighteer and Shaoken on this one. MLPFIM is such a lighthearted show that this level of heinousness is unobtainable.
2. He was said to be the king of chaos. In other words, just doing his job. I don't consider him all that evil.
3. He was way too much Played for Laughs
4. Finally, whenever I see a Single-Issue Wonk, I am always inclined to vote against a villain.
Anyway, these are my reasons why Discord doesn't count, but I am not sure if this was the actual reason why we disqualified him. Let's move on and not talk about it.
edited 8th Jan '13 9:56:07 AM by Krystoff
...You realize that Freudian Excuse is a "no" argument, not a "yes" one? And that apparently Discord was locked into a statue for centuries (its alleged Freudian Excuse)
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
I know it is a "no" argument. While I agree that he doesn't count, I am arguing because he doesn't count for different reasons. Being turned into a statue is not an excuse because he was a villain before that happened. This is why he was turned to stone.
We are talking not about villainy here.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
I think we are verging a bit from the original discussion. Discord is a dead issue
Arguing about why we cut somebody is something we should save for if/when someone else tries to force us to add him. In the meantime, why fight amongst ourselves?
The thing about Cy from Criminal Minds is that the episode itself notes that he's extremely intelligent for a disabled person, aware that he's disabled, and (this is the big one) uses his disability to his advantage to stage Wounded Gazelle Gambits to better snatch victims. I'm not sure TC really fits any of these, though he's at the very least exceptionally Squicky.
Thanks Ambar. Better close the issue before more bronies will come and start forcing us to add Discord (or Chrysalis) to the list. So better close it immediatly.
Lost in Space
Discord is already on the list of closed topics.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Yes he is, nobody was denying that. Add Yakone as well because he was another issue like that.
edited 8th Jan '13 11:31:02 AM by Krystoff
Lost in Space
Give me context, please. These names make my head spin.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
@6617
I'd agree with that. With Cy there is a great deal of evidence given in-show to demonstrate that he is aware of the heinousness of his actions and doesn't give a damn. With TC, I don't see that. Sure he knows he could get in trouble if he's caught having sex with chickens (hence why he kills Billy-Bob to cover it up), but there's no real indicator that he actually understands why he would get in trouble, namely that it is morally wrong.
Even if we don't use that as an automatic disqualifier, it at the very least makes him less heinous then Marie and Jody, who are fully cognizant of their actions, and in the case of Jody, derive a sick satisfaction, not from the actions themselves, but from the wrongness of them.
Yakone is from Avatar: The Legend of Korra. He's a one-time ganglord who appears in flashback, and who people made continuous efforts to get put onto the list.
edited 8th Jan '13 11:37:53 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar
Lost in Space
Okay, I'll try one more time. Write up the entry like you were going to paste it into the list in the OP. Markup and all.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
- Yakone: Fails heinous standard compared to Ozai, has love for his son.
This is the summary for Yakone (Good thing I binged this thread a few times)
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
And the First...honestly I'm not sure how the sadistic onscreen torture of up to hundreds and playing off an innocent woman's love for her husband to damn her to hell solely to hurt her brother and torture her forever isn't meeting the heinous standard, but it's your opinion, so your vote is yours.
As for SRW, the others I'd argue for are Lubikka Harkinnen (There's no set way to spell that damn name). He not only makes targetting and ruining Tytti Noorbuk's life and killing her loved ones his personal mission in life, he leads multiple attacks on civilian populations, attempting to leave no survivors and wiped out several civilian colonies. One thing this entry is terrible at is pointing out how he's from a different series of games from Grims entirely.
Edel Bernal I need to do a better writeup for, and aguilla Setme is the last I'd argue for. While Grims is the psycho killer, Setme is a Mind Rape specialist who brainwashes a bunch of children into becoming child soldiers,in what's apparently a rather painful and harrowing process, using said kids as cannon fodder or making them into sociopathic soldiers who willingly attack civilian populations. When one of her specimens joins the good guys, she brainwashes his love interest into being the one to go out to kill him, and turns the girl they see as their big sister into their attempted executioner when that fails. She gloats how they're all nothing but test subjects. She doesn't kill as many people as Grims, but you can ascribe anyone who die in the soldiers' attacks to her orders, and her turning them into killers,and the artificial creation of child soldiers seems as uniquely heinous as what Grims does, so from the Original Generation games, I'd argue these two are the standouts. We actually see Setme brainwashing said love interest as she's crying out and begging, without a twinge of pity or emotion from Setme
edited 8th Jan '13 8:19:24 AM by Lightysnake