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
I'd also like to say that I don't think KH Scar counts either in case he's brought up. The only crimes that he's done in the games that weren't carried over from the movie from what I recall (sans trying to kill the protagonists for food) he's done after becoming a heartless, so I'm pretty sure there would be some agency issues.
By the time he tries to destroy the Pridelands as the Groundshaker he essentially becomes yet another generic giant heartless with no actual character.
edited 8th Dec '16 10:24:16 PM by Awesomekid42
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Fair point. I know Shan Yu does not count in the games since he's turned into a GDV.
I apologize for my little rant.
jjj
Hey guys just want to let you know I have completed my Final Exams as well as my 1st semester as a college sophomore. Now then, there was this one guy from Criminal Minds season 12 that I've wanted to discuss but wasn't sure if he qualified. Now that I've got school work out of the way, this seems like a perfect time to craft my effort post of him, without a further a due, my proposal of John David Bates
Who Is He? What Has He Done?
John David Bates is a serial killer, arsonist, and abductor appearing in Season 12's second episode "Sick Day".
A pyromaniac since the day he was born, he always had the desire to burn his own sister alive ALIVE. He had attempted to do this at least twice before his parents caught on to this and send him to foster care far away from his sister, Trisha.
Later in his life, he got a job in Pyrotechnics, he would use his occupation to carry out his fantasies, burning children alive. He would target would be brunette minors, specifically boys with older sisters and teenage girls with younger brothers. He would approach his victims in broad daylight and lure them in with a ruse, such as asking them for help in finding an app on his phone. When that would not work, he would blitz-attack them and force them into his van, gagging them and binding their arms and legs together with zip-ties. He would then take them to abandoned warehouses that he selected beforehand, chain them to cots, pour lighter fluid all over them and the floors, ignite the accelerant with a lighter, and burn his victims alive. He would stay behind and watch the victims as they died before fleeing once the fire became too strong. He also forced the victims to watch each other die. He has done this to at least for children and those were just the children being documented. All of this was done to remind himself of the joy he felt when torturing her sister with fire, only here the victims actually die.
He then kidnapped another child brother-sister pair along with his own sister with the complete intent to burn her alive as well. Before condemning them to the flame he would torture the three by burning their skins with his lighter. Just when he was about to set them ablaze inside a warehouse, BAU agents JJ and Luke Alvarez came in and arrested Bates, however they were only able to rescue two out of the three victims, Trisha and Roberto, while the third victim Francesca, Roberto's sister, met her end by the flame.
Freudian Excuse
None. We dare not given a reason why he want to Burn his sister alive, but we predict that this reason was simply because he has a kick out of it. He also has burns on his arms, but that is said due to addiction playing with fire too much, rather than a tragic event.
Redeeming Qualities
None. He hates his sister, to the point that he wants to burn her to death and doesn't show any love for his parents. He did send an email to Trisha wanting to meet with her, but that was only so that it would make it easier to abduct her and carry out his fantasy.
Heinousness
Like I said before, I'm not to sure if he passes it or not. He kinda has a low body count five confirmed dead victims. However all of these victims were children and all of them suffered horrible and painful deaths by being burned alive. Given that he wanted to target children in the first place, and might have had more victims under his belt, and this being one of the few cases that traumatized BAU agent JJ, he might make the cut.
Final Verdict
I'll leave that up to you guys!
edited 8th Dec '16 11:38:56 PM by G-Editor
Caesar
Firm 'Yes' votes to Atlas (Darn shame on it's cancellation. Was planning on picking that one up, but oh well) and Quan Chi. Will also give a slight 'Yes' to Bartell.
A bit more hesitant on the Director from Elfen Lied, but I'll trust Lighty's judgement and say 'Yes' to him as well.
Absolute 'No' to any villains from KH bar Xehanort, with Scraggle giving an excellent summary as to why that mirrors my thoughts on the matter.
Anywho, cracks knuckles let's begin. Any thoughts or suggested changes on these write-ups before I add them to the Drafts are always welcome.
First, the 2000 Max Steel write-ups...
- Max Steel:
- John Dread is the leader of DREAD, a terrorist cell that deals in mass death and destruction in the name of world domination. Dread runs his organization with icy ruthlessness, and regularly places thousands of innocents in harm's way, with notable instances involving trying to flash freeze an entire city, hoping to blackout Paris and all of its life support systems, attempting to destroy the United Nations Headquarters, and disabling a satellite and leaving it to crash into an entire city, all in order to further his plans. Though at first seeming rather professional about his crimes, Dread decides It's Personal with Max Steel when, after failing to dissect the boy alive, his own face is scarred by Max, leading Dread to kidnap the boy's best friend while promising to exchange him for a vial of powerful nanoprobes, at which point he tries to kill the boy anyway just to torture Max. As a final attempted atrocity, Dread tries to obliterate the Switzerland city of Geneva, killing its entire population plus the gathered world leaders, then blame the death toll on N-Tek, the spy organization made to thwart Dread's crimes. With no empathy, remorse, or limitations to his ambition and greed, John Dread personified the very worst of the various terrorists Max Steel encountered throughout his missions.
- Psycho is an ever-grinning lunatic who is Max's most personal and hated enemy. Psycho first met his nemesis when he splashed deadly nanoprobes all over the boy, hoping for them to excruciatingly kill him, unknowing that it would create his worst enemy, whom he would later go on to attempt to dissect, freeze to death, and drop a satellite onto the hometown of. Serving as John Dread's right-hand man for most of the series, Psycho gleefully commits any and all orders given him, the higher the bodycount the better, and often goes beyond what his orders entail so as to inflict as much pain and death as possible, such as trying to murder two innocent teens for merely stumbling nearby his base, or by trying to annihilate a small village with an erupting volcano he is only supposed to be mining. His loyalty to Dread being simply a pragmatic partnership, Psycho often enacts his own schemes, normally involving acquiring plagues or nuclear missiles in order to destroy any city he wants then hold others for ransom while attempting to kill anyone in his way, an entire cruise ship of innocents being just one instance of this. His own accomplices fare no better than his enemies, as Psycho tries to silence a captured compatriot, abuses his minions, and brutally murders his partner, Bio-Constrictor, even after the latter assists Psycho in attempting to transform all of humanity into monstrous creatures under his control. Nigh-invulnerable and always seeking to one-up Max Steel, Psycho lives up to his namesake as a truly psychopathic madman who proudly embraces his atrocities as if they were ends unto themselves.
Next up, the Max Steel (2013) baddies, rewritten and updated in Dredd and Makino's cases.
- Max Steel (2013):
- Miles Dredd, the Arch-Enemy of Max Steel, is a sociopath defined by his opportunistic and selfish personality. Once a scientist who worked alongside Max's father, Jim McGrath, Dredd sabotaged one of their TURBO energy experiments, leading to Jim's seeming death and Dredd being afflicted with a sick hunger for TURBO energy as his life energy. After founding THI Industries, a technology corporation he uses as cover for his terrorist activities, Dredd becomes obsessed with Max Steel when he learns the young teen outputs massive amounts of TURBO energy, and during the series, regularly tries to drain the boy of this energy, always nearly killing him while making disturbing euphemisms about the "rush" it gives him. With mass casualties always being a factor in his plans, including setting an occupied high school aflame, trying to nuke numerous cities, and attempting to drain the life force of an entire city's population, Dredd has no problem targeting young teenagers either, as he threatens a school bus filled with them, sets an occupied high school aflame, and regularly tries to murder any, namely Max's best friends, that he runs across. Though always an evil lunatic, Dredd graduates to a truly monstrous individual when he destroys Earth's planetary defense grid, paving the way for the planet-destroying overlord Makino to annihilate Earth, in exchange for granting Dredd a high position in his army, at which point Dredd plans to betray Makino and conquer the universe with his army. Even after this master plan fails, Dredd continues to stoop to new levels of depravity when he creates an abominable creature named Morphos, emotionally abuses him into attacking his enemies, then kills him when he becomes too independent, ruthlessly blowing him up and referring to him as a "nothing". Caring for no one but himself, and willing to sacrifice even the entire planet in his schemes, Miles Dredd was the most recurring, and most personal, foe Max Steel faced.
- Makino is the Man Behind the Man to both the Ultralinks and Miles Dredd, and earns his place as Earth's greatest threat. An artificial intelligence created to "absorb and expand", Makino pushed his programming to his limits when, after possessing his creator, began "absorbing" entire planets into his ultimate weapon, the Alphalink, effectively annihilating them in the process, a process he has repeated countless times. An utter Blood Knight who displays far more sadism than remotely necessary, Makino abuses his Ultralink "children", uses Jim McGrath as a power source, keeping him in constant agony, and brutally beats down his foes with a gleeful grin on his face. After capturing Steel, the only Ultralink to turn against him, Makino happily tortures him before attempting to kill him, Max, and his long lost father once his Alphalink is destroyed. Makino returns in the film Wrath of Makino, where he possesses Max Steel, uses his insecurities and inner thoughts to torment his friends and family, and reveals he plans to destroy the entire Earth, not to absorb it, but simply out of spite for being humiliated. Though at first seeming to perhaps only be taking his programming to the extreme, Makino displays the most needlessly sadistic personality in the series, and shows in the end that he is fully capable of ignoring his programming when, rather than attempt to absorb the Earth as usual, he tries to wipe it out in a petulant rage.
- Professor Mortum, the main villain of the films Team Turbo and Team Turbo: Fusion-Tek, sticks out among Max Steel's villains as a truly horrifying monster. Originally a genius scientist with a great fear of death, Mortum became obsessed with immortality, and to this end, sought to obtain the Connect-Tek, a powerful N-Tek device that would grant Mortum godlike powers. Capturing hundreds of N-Tek agents, Mortum tortures them all with electricity for information on the Connect-Tek, after which he sics many of Max Steel's other enemies onto his hometown of Copper Canyon, ordering them to destroy everything in sight in their quest to locate him the Connect-Tek. After failing to properly handle the Connect-Tek once getting his hands on it, Mortum is killed, at which point the Connect-Tek replaces his mind, turning Mortum into a whole new brand of monster. Now a techno zombie due to the Connect-Tek, Mortum still retains his original personality, and quickly begins draining the minds of dozens of his own lackies, transforming them into mindless techno zombies that he uses to infect an entire city, draining all of their minds, after which he tries to inflict the same fate on his own nephew. After numerous soldiers are killed in their attempts to stop him, Mortum captures, tortures, and dissects Max's best friend, Steel, before using his powers to infect all of humanity with his techno virus, transforming the Earth into a barren wasteland, after which he reveals his plans to absorb all of humanity's minds into himself, becoming a god and eliminating the "disorder" of human empathy. Quickly graduating from a particularly wicked villain to a full-blown genocidal lunatic between his appearances in the films, Professor Mortum is easily Max Steel's most nightmarish and terrifying villain, despite his sometimes amusing personality.
edited 8th Dec '16 11:22:53 PM by Ravok
WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Bates. I think he's the only possibility for this season so far. But yeah, not a high body count, but a brutal method, and he Would Hurt a Child. Kind of a...unique niche, along with Anita Roycewood, who has a comparable body count.
I'm gonna have to say no to Bates simply because his crimes aren't really unique in Criminal Minds' setting. Off the top of my head I can remember there being at least two other arsonist unsubs, both with higher bodycounts AND child victims. Granted, they didn't exclusively target children, but I just don't feel comfortable upvoting Bates all the same.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Another besides Roycewood?
EDIT: There is this guy. I still think Bates does enough.
Worth giving Max Steel its own page? 5 entries, but fairly lengthy.
edited 9th Dec '16 5:39:20 AM by ACW
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Wild Child
I don't think giving Max Steel is necessary.
Why so serious?
to John David Bates.
Your friendly neighborhood stank goblin
Damn it. I forgot about that guy. And I forgot how disturbing that whole episode was, especially the car explosion scene.
I really wanna give John David Bates a pass; kidnapping children and burning them to death for no reason is horrible. And he gets points for trying to burn his sister alive since he was a child. But Vincent Stiles murdered entire families—two families we see on-screen, and one family had a teenage victim while the other one consisted of two children/pre-teens. Not to mention Stiles' body count is higher......
Did he at least rape them, or something? Was it implied he had more victims perhaps? If not, then I'm gonna have to ![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_down_emoticon_3571.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
John David Bates. He definitely stands out for wanting to specifically kill children, but we've had other killers (notably Stiles) who didn't target children, but were perfectly okay with them dying.
Jesus—a serial arsonist who burned five children is low on the food chain for Criminal Minds. What the hell is wrong with this show?
edited 9th Dec '16 6:18:18 AM by Tyk5919
I write stories and shiz. You can read them here.
No to bates.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
What about then, say, Anita Roycewood? Her body count's not THAT much higher than Bates's. Is Stiles's ep worth watching to see if he counts? ![[down]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_down.png "[down]"){kind=icon}
I'm just saying...both burned children to death. Although I guess Anita's abuse is that little extra.
edited 9th Dec '16 6:43:29 AM by ACW
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Okay, on Anita Roycewood?
Stop. Right now.
edited 9th Dec '16 6:38:36 AM by Lightysnake
Your friendly neighborhood stank goblin
@ACW: See, even with Stiles, I don't think he counts either. Same as Bates, what he does is horrific, and I think it was over pretty petty reasons. But as I was looking up Stiles, I remembered Tommy Wheeler, another serial arsonist who was also okay with murdering children. And he killed 30+ people. But he doesn't count because (I think) he's not mentally sane, and his Freudian Excuse kinda holds up.
Again, the heinous standard for Criminal Minds is fucking ridiculous at this point.
I write stories and shiz. You can read them here.
Yeah, Anita isn't going anywhere: Child abduction, child abuse (of the physical, psychological, AND sexual persuasions to boot), burning her child victims alive, forcing a child to join in with her abductions, AND leaving her husband to take the fall for their crimes... she does more than enough to stick out. Of course, it helps that she's pants-wettingly terrifying to boot (Kudos to Beth Grant).
Pretty firm no on Bates and Max Steel is not in dire need of its own page.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Works for me. But yeah, of all the "realistic" series (i.e., not something like Warhammer 40K, or even ASOIAF/GOT), I think CM probably has the highest heinous standard (though SVU's not too far behind).
John David Bates
Lizzid people!
How much longer before FFXV can be discussed? I've got a lot of information on the bad guy and am dying to discuss them.
Also definite no to anyone who isn't Xehanort in KH. We've been through this before: the Disney villains don't have enough crimes on screen or are too generic to qualify, plus Maleficent pulls a Heel–Face Turn at the end of KH 2. Xehanort is probably staying assuming the third main series game doesn't pull a Freudian Excuse out of its ass like he reads to sick orphans or he had an abusive family or something like that.
edited 9th Dec '16 7:53:27 AM by Klavice
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Wait, didn't you ask before if somebody else could handle the FFXV posts since you weren't getting it until christmas? You'll be able to do an effort post for it after all?
edited 9th Dec '16 8:42:33 AM by Awesomekid42
As a comment on Criminal Minds... if we sincerely have to ask "did he at least rape the children before burning them alive?" we're dealing with a show with an abysmally high heinous standard. I personally vouch that no new candidates from this series be brought up unless they really stand out because at this rate it honestly feels like we're going in circles with these crime show candidates.
Klavice, have you played the game through yet? Research alone isn't going to cut it (especially with an early release, mind you).
edited 9th Dec '16 9:59:36 AM by Scraggle
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]")
Okay, now I agree that he probably does not count. That wasn't so hard. That's all I needed to know.
jjj