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
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Hey guys just got back from watch season 3 of Ripper Street and I believe That I have found another candidate to put into its Monster Page. Without a further due here is my candidate Ronald Capshaw:
Who Is He?
Ronald Capshaw is the head of Obsidian Estates, serving as the Arc Villain of season's 3's first half and ultimately the Disc-One Final Boss of the season where he met his death in the 4th episode titled "Your Father, My Friend" at the hands of Long Susan Hart. Before his death however here is what he has done.
What Has He Done?
Ronald Capshaw collaborated with Long Susan and actually persuades her to rob one of her father's cargo trains, which is carrying $350,000 in unclaimed bearer bonds. He sends men to rob the money from the train for them and actually succeeds in doing so but to due tempering with the tracks, it cause two trains to collide with another resulting of the deaths of 55 innocent men women and children all for a quick buck.
While all the men who robbed the train and Long Susan were shock at what their machination have done, Ronald show no such emotions only showing utter joy that this has happen so he can make money out of this travesty. He also make sure that he doesn't get connected to this event by telling his men to meet up in a warehouse only to not show up leaving them at the mercy of the police and be hanged at the gallows.
However, this doesn't satisfy Detective Edmund Reid who is still investigating the incident, so he decides to get rid of Reid and eventually finds a way, first by learning of Reid long lost daughter Matilda then kill her. He eventually find Matilda and kill one of her caretakers while the other escapes and was prepared to kill Matilda herself until Susan tells him not to and to bring her to her. Not wanting to lose an important business partner decides to comply albeit begrudgingly, but also finds a way to get rid of Reid as well as kill the caretaker that got away. He lies to Reid to his long loss daughter was abused and murder by the caretakers, resulting in Reid to brutally murder the remaining caretaker resulting in Reid in becoming a fugitive something Ronald takes joy in.
As for Matilda she is under protecting of Susan hidden from the public eye where Ronald tries to persuade Susan to kill Matilda saying it would be easier. This doesn't work and Susan instead tries to send her away from England to America which fails and Matilda escapes from their grasps.
Now furious that she is out there and could bring them safety to jeprody sends his men out to find and murder her. This fails as Reid eventually find his daughter, resulting in Ronald chastising Susan for letting things get out of hand and threaten to expose her part in the train incident if she ever does something similar.
Now blackmailing Susan into complying with his demands he forces her to kill Reid and she nearly succeeds, but not without Reid suffering a prolonged coma and Susan deciding to turn her gun at Ronald to kill finally having enough with his presence.
Freudian Excuse? Redeeming Qualities?
No freudian excuse to speak of other than greed.
As for his Redeeming Qualities.
He only views Long Susan as a business venture to expand his wealth nothing else and has no problem blackmailing her to comply to his demands and at one point threatening to kill her.
He also lacks Susan motives to use the stolen money to gentrify Whitechapel and only plans to use the stolen money for himself, everyone else be damned.
So he gets nothing on that venture.
Heinousness
He practically sets it for this season and meets the standards of the series as a whole. His plan resulted in the deaths of 55 innocent people, has his 5 men executed by the police, brutally murdered 2 people one by his own hands and another by Reid, and forces Susan to kill Reid himself all while showing absolutely no remorse whatsoever even taking joy out of these deaths.
The only one that comes close to meeting his standard is Susan by taking part in the incident and killing Ronald himself but she doesn't count for still having some redeeming qualities, such as her lover for Homer Jackson and her lover for her son Connor in season 4.
There is also her father Theodore Swift who appears on the last episode of season 3 but all he does onscreen torture and kill two people and in charge of a weapon smuggling ring.
All the Monsters of the Week only have one murder under their belt (some not even that)
So yeah Ronald Capshaw surpasses everyone else in this season in almost every way.
Final Verdict
I'd give him a ![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
. what about you guys?
edited 27th Feb '17 4:25:34 PM by G-Editor
The Unknown Unknown
Ronald.
I've also got a distinction I want clarified. What's the fine line between GDV and Flat Character? Our understanding of the tropes may have evolved (hence why Validar and Grima are now C Ms), but I think we should make an official distinction like we just did loyalty and fanaticism. Just so proposers won't misunderstand like the resources clause.
A cruel, sick joke is still a joke, and sometimes all you can do is laugh.
A Generic Doomsday Villain is not merely a flat character, they have no personality whatsoever.
Alright I'm sorry I can't offer any opinions on the new candidates right now but here is my writeup for Wade:
Wade is a criminal who, along with his two partners, Frank and Terry, rob a bank, in which Frank gets shot but survives. When they try to make it across the river with the stolen money, Frank, who happens to be their guide, proves useless to Wade when his wound re-opens, so Wade kills him (it is implied later that Wade forced a reluctant Terry to do so for little reason at all). With no guide, Wade asks Gale Weathers to help them under the guise of a kind individual. When his attempt to drown her husband, Tom, by pretending to drown himself fails, Wade does what he can to win Gale and her young son, Roarke, over while trying to turn them against Tom. Gale finally becomes suspicious when Wade spies on her while she's skinny dipping. When they try to escape from him, Wade beats Tom infront of them, attempts to kill their dog, and slaps Roarke for telling Tom he had a gun. He then uses Tom and Roarke to blackmail Gale into taking them across the Gauntlet (which would most likely get them all killed). When Gale begs him to let them go out of fear for their lives, Wade simply brushes her pleas off and even hits on her. When Tom tries to escape, Wade attempts to shoot him to death, but not before taunting him about how many seconds he has to left live. When he believes he succeeds in doing so, he tells Gale and Roarke without any hint of remorse. After a ranger, who is also a close friend of Gale's, catches them and discovers their plan to ride the Gauntlet, he offers to carry them in a helicopter due to the dangers involved. Therefore, Wade shoots him and throws him into the water to his death infront of Gale, and jokes about it afterwards. After Gale begs Wade not to tie Roarke to the boat out of fear he might drown in the gauntlet, Wade refuses to do so to push her into being "the best [she] can be". After Gale gets them across the Gauntlet, Tom booby traps them both and Gale pulls their gun (which only has one bullet) on Wade and Terry. When Wade begs for his life, Gale decides to shoot the last bullet in the air to let them live out of mercy. However the gun doesn't shoot, which leads Wade to believe there was never one left, and request that Terry kill Tom and Roarke, despite the fact that Gale spared his life. When she discovers she just had to chamber the last round, she kills Wade just before he tries to kill her to save himself. A hardened criminal who cared little about the lives of others including his partners, Wade said it best when declaring he was "just a different kind of nice guy".
If you feel it's too long, I understand.
Yeah, that's going to be cut down by like 2/3s
Ronald Capshaw
Ok. Should I do it or will an editor do it or...?
to Ronald Capshaw.
Alright, it's been two weeks. I have two monsters from two games for tonight before my new round of writeups...the first game is Sniper Elite IV
The setting is Italy, 1943,. OSS officer Karl Fairburne, fresh off his stint in Africa is sent into Italy to aid the resistance against the occupying fascist forces. Karl, of course, is a veteran, expert sniper, and falls in with the Italian Partisans, led by the woman known as 'Angel.'
The Italians make do with what they have going against the forces of the sadistic General Heinz Bohm, the Butcher of Bologna....problem? Nobody knows what Bohm looks like...
Who Is And What's He Do?
Bohm turns out to be one of the German informants working with the partisans, Alfred Dorfmann...a slimy little creep interested in profiting. In reality, Bohm is a glory hound, hungry to profit off the Third Reich and destroy his enemies. Throughout the game, we see the evidence of Bohm's actions.
The Butcher of Bologna wasn't for show. Bohm leaves swaths of death people wherever he goes. As Dorfmann, he gives semi-reliable intel to the Partisans, which results in many on his own side being killed by them, or by Karl, all so he can lure them into an eventual trap. Towards the end of the game, Bohm initiates a massacre of the partisans, with many corpses too badly burned to be identified.
It's also revealed that working with a scientist named Kessler, Bohm has used slave labor to put together a new weapon: a guided missile that will annihilate the Allied fleet. His first target? The USS Ancon, with General Eisenhower aboard. Karl rushes to Bohm's base to stop the launch when Bohm confronts him. After having Angel brought in, Bohm mocks Karl, stating his intention to torture Angel and make Karl watch. Angel attacks Bohm, giving Karl time to duck to cover, but Bohm shoots Angel through the head and flees to get to his plane, taunting Karl how he'll destroy the entire allied fleet and ensure victories for the Nazis. In the final mission of the game, Karl snipes the fuel tanks on Bohm's plane, causing it to crash and explode, taking the Nazi bastard with it.
Mitigating Qualities?
No. Bohm even delights in an utter lack of redeeming qualities, stating that if the situation demands he can be a man or a monster with no real distinction for him between either.
Heinousness?
As far as I'm aware, he's the worst Sniper Elite really has so far.
Conclusion?
Not the worst Nazi we have here, but I'd call Bohm a keeper.
To Ronald, Bohm, Donovan and Hawk.
Cut Prometheus.
Second monster...and one of my favorites of the year thus far!
From For Honor...I give you the best damn Dark Action Girl monster in recent history. Enter Apollyon.
What Is the Game?
Knights vs. Vikings vs. Samurai.
The factions have been at war with eachother for years now. Three of the leaders of each faction meet up, as we flashback to what began the conflict...in the past, the Blackstone Legion, a feared company of warriors, launched an all out assault with the intention to create a perpetual war....all at the behest of its leader, a tall, terrifying figure all in armor...Apollyon.
Who Is She?
Apollyon, years ago, was a girl who saw her village destroyed thanks to the law. Apollyon hunted down the ones who burnt her village and killed them, taking the armor of the one who killed her family as a trophy...all for one reason: to show that no law could be held against the powerful.
When she joined the Blackstone Legion, Apollyon found the other leaders were too cowardly, too noble, or too weak...so she murdered them all and took control. The first protagonist, the knight Warden, is inducted into the Blackstone Legion by Apollyon's right hand man Holden Cross. They proceed to defend against the Viking raiders on the shores of the land of Ashfeld...however...it becomes clear that Apollyon cares nothing for protecting the people...all she wants is more conflict...
What's she done?
Upon meeting her, Apollyon takes a group of opponents and orders them to surrender. Two try to kill her. After disarming them, Apollyon presses them into the Blackstone Legion and slaughters those who surrendered as "sheep". When the vikings invade, Apollyon strikes to crush them, but not satisfied with an end to the conflict, she leads a raid onto their homeland and sacks their cities. She then proceeds to take or destroy all their food supplies, leaving just enough to be fought over, so only the strongest and most brutal will survive, leaving them to fall on eachother in hunger and desperation. This works like a charm until a warrior known as the Raider manages to unify the clans. Sickened by Apollyon's actions, the Warden and Holden Cross desert the Blackstone legion as senseless slaughter rages.
Now desperate, the Raider leads his people to distant shores to attack the Chosen, in the land of Myre and the Dawn Empire...a Japanese-inspired people, to resupply the vikings. With the Dawn Empire in chaos...Apollyon launches her own attack, sacking their capital, murdering the emperor, and making a warrior named Seijuro emperor after he vows to kill her one day....taking the Daimyos, or feudal lords, Apollyon murders those who refuse to play her game and releases the others into the marshes with instructions to murder one another. The greatest champion of the emperor, the Orochi, is left to languish in Seijuro's dungeons. A daimyo named Ayu kills the more evil of the others to prevent honorless, evil men from forging an army to take the throne...and just as Apollyon planned, they rally against the Vikings as a common enemy, prolonging more conflict.
The Warden joins up with their forces as they realize how Apollyon has played them all. The knights and Samurai join together in an assault on apollyon's castle and in an epic fight, after slaughtering multiple soldiers, Apollyon and the Orochi face off. The Orochi manages to mortally wound Apollyon, and as she dies, she laughs that her plan has come to pass...the Vikings have arrived and the samurai and knights each think the other have betrayed them, the sides falling on eachother just as Apollyon planned.
Apollyon mocks the Orochi, saying her intent was to create an eternity of war where only the strong will survive, as all who survive will be as bloodthirsty and cruel as her. With that, Apollyon collapses and dies, leaving a bloody conflict, with the faction leaders only able to even attempt to stop it years later.
Heinous Standard?
She EASILY sets it. Apollyon is the most heinous villain in the game. Nobody's a saint, but her body count and far-reaching goals? Just look at all that.
Freudian Excuse?
Somewhat. While Apollyon can be explained, it doesn't excuse her. She suffered no apparent pain over the loss of her home (just "someone thinks they can apply the law? to ME? I'll show them") and she's a damn war junkie who glories in what she is. She's not suffering any pain whatsoever.
Mitigating Qualities?
Apollyon's Social Darwinist philosophy is the one belief she has, and she'll happily press-gang anyone into the Legion if they're strong enough. To join you have to want to keep fighting...despite this, she cares nothing for her soldiers. She'll happily sacrifice or kill them herself and throwing them into an endless conflict to die one after the other. At the end, she's fine dying since it means the world will be utterly consumed in the flames of war. As she says: She IS war and that's what she brings.
Conclusion?
Apollyon is a fantastic villain. An utter monster, a Blood Knight war junkie who brings about catastrophic loss of life. Keep her easily.
Apollyon. She sounds like she'd fit right in with the Megaten Chaos faction.
Your friendly neighborhood stank goblin
Apollyon and Bohm.
Caesar
Easy 'Yes' to both Bohm and Apollyon. And a belated 'Yes' to Vice President Richard Hawk.
WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!
The Wanderer
To RICHARD HAWK, Bohm, and Apollyon
Apollyon
Wild Child
Capshaw, Bohm, and Apollyon.
Yes to Lighty's candidates.
To Richard Hawk, Bohm, and a big for Apollyon.
Finally we got a truly evil female Big Bad from a Video Game that truly counts, unlike some the female Big Bads from video games recently brought up but didn't make it *cough* Lusamine *cough* Delilah Copperspoon.
So anymore votes for Ronald Capshaw?
Caesar
I'll also throw in a 'Yes' to Capshaw.
WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!
- Stellarvore: MUCH better. From over 380 (I think) to around 230
![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]")
- bobg: Looks good to me.
- Monsund: Please add those two (along with Grima's) to the Drafts.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts