Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

Gonna interject here with a rewrite for Amshel Goldsmith, whose write up doesn't strike me as hitting all the vileness to him:

• Amshel Goldmisth is a researcher obsessed with Chiropterans, The Man in Front of the Man to Diva and responsible for all the chaos in the setting. Since her birth, Amshel twisted Diva to become a Psychopathic Womanchild easy for him to control, while he used her resulting appetite for death and destruction to profit and increase his own power at the expense of her victims. Living for hundreds of years, Amshel now has the public persona of the CEO of pharmaceutical company Cinque Flèches and uses his wealth to create a group of artificial Chiropterans known as The Schiff, raising as Child Soldiers and treating like equipment, as shown by his indifference to their deaths when they escape his clutches and their shortened lifespans begin to expire. A man with loyalty to none, Amshel even kills his own brother, Solomon, for falling in love with Saya. His false loyalty to Diva is an obvious ruse which even she can see through but chooses to go along with out of loneliness and when she’s killed, Amshel reacts with only irritation and demands to be given her children so he can continue his insane experiments.

edited 29th May '17 10:22:11 PM by 43110

@Lightysnake: In terms of Orcs? I agree that Azog definitely stands out above the rest. He's got a distinct look, has a twig for an arm, is played by Manu Bennett, his presence is intimidating even to other orcs, and he's motivated by racism and a grudge. (Though I find it laughable how they refer to him as "the Pale Orc" when in these movies all the Orcs are pale) In terms of villains? I don't find him to quite go the full mile in order to stand out as one of the absolute worst individuals to exist in this setting. Putting aside the moral agency question, what exactly did he do that was such standout evilness? You talk about his motivations for his evil deeds as being unique to him, but is what's motivating him really enough to make him a Monster if the deeds themselves are things that could be or have been done by other villains in the setting for different reasons? And let's be honest, does anyone not named Thorin Oakenshield even care about what's driving Azog's actions? He's out to slaughter all of them - he could be doing that for no reason other than For the Evulz and the Dwarves would react to him in exactly the same way. The narrative and characters don't make much of anything of Azog's motivations, so why should we?

edited 29th May '17 9:39:03 PM by ANewMan

Attempted dwarf genocide? Even the other orcs seem to just take a "let's not pursue them and just keep our territory.

I mean, we do see other orcs characterized. Ugluk is a Proud Warrior Race Guy and Shagrat and Gorbag are basically punchclock villains.

From what we see of the orcs, Azog is absolutely nastier than them. Gorbag even tells Shagrat "man, wish we could just go off somewhere with some good lads, get some plunder and chill out without this war nonsense?" Azog is a gleeful warmonger by contrast.

He's not in for that reason. He's there because he has a grudge against Thorin's family line. While the reasons are obscure, that's a valid motivation, and not technically 'standard.' By contrast, Sauron also has to care as Azog explicitly refuses to just go along blindly with what he wants.

edited 29th May '17 9:41:55 PM by Lightysnake

Playing catch up:

To Novel Sharptooth, Groan, Clone Zero, Pratt, Dr. Gaia and Murmuxmon.

To Loutermilch.

I will abstain on Azog for the moment.

Wasn't Dwarf genocide something he only tried to do himself in the past? In the film's present day, he seemed to expect Sauron to bring about that genocide for him while his main personal kill among the Dwarfs would be Thorin due to his family line.

I gotta go to work in the morning so I'm off to sleep. Hopefully, the discussion won't have blown over by then. One last thing I will say though, to you Lighty, is that just because Azog is worse than other orcs and has shown to act independently of Sauron, doesn't mean he is capable of being good or have actual moral agency. That's the major hurdle that has to be overcome now on your side.

Yes, but he's expecting to lead it, and does so. Using your boss to facilitate what you can't on your end is a valid form of nastiness.

Oh, I'll agree with you That's why I proposed Tolkien's letter here. I believe that leans a certain way for the explicit morality.

I'll also restate my thanks for so many new people in this thread submitting characters the proper way and contributing so positively.

I have one more for tonight...so who here knows the name Peter Hyams? He's the director of Time Cop and Sudden Death, both with complete monsters who fought Jean-Claude van Damme. In his movie Enemies Closer, we mix it up. Since van Damme IS the CM!

I give you...Xander.

Who Is Xander And What Does Xander Do?

A...Quebecois (I guess?) drug lord who runs a brutal cartel, Xander is annoyed when a plane carrying his shipment of pure, uncut heroin crashes into a lake near the US-Canada border Very deep into the lake, in fact. A group of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers prepare to search...when a group ofMounties arrive!

Except these are no Mounties...it's Xander and his drug crew disguised as Royal Canadian Mounties! And they then proceed to massacre everyone in the office when ICE decides that weird Mounties are not enough to turn over jurisdiction.

Our hero is an ex-NAVY Seal named Henry living in the woods where he runs a service center, near to a crotchety old man named Sanderson, by Henry's son. Orlando Jones plays Clay, a man with a grudge against Henry they're forced to put aside to fight against Xander. Anyways, Xander murders a man to steal his boat to locate the heroin. After a series of events leads to Xander's diver being shot, Xander determines he's useless and smothers him to death,. A number of other ICE agents are investigating and Xander personally massacres them, impaling them with tree branches to kill them before going after Clay and Henry. The two team up with old man Sanderson who is captured by Xander, interrogated and knifed to death. He radios Henry, telling him to give him the heroin after Henry recovered it from the dive, or Xander will kill Henry's family in front of him, starting with his son. It also turns out Henry's love interest? Is a spy from Xander, and he regularly uses her to entice and betray people she meets. She fails to kill Henry and Xander later casually snaps her neck....Henry and Xander fight and Xander nearly gets away on his boat, only for Henry to loosen the gas and use a flare to ignite a trail to the boat. Xander comments he knew the gasoline would be trouble and dies laughing hysterically before his boat explodes.

Heinous Standard?

Only main bad guy. Sets it. And I'd say killing as many people as he does is well over the baseline.

Mitigating qualities?

Hilariously, he does have standards, but none that are...mitigating. Foremost? He's a devoted vegan because he can't stand meat. He relates a story of how his grandmother cooked his pet goose when he was a kid, making him swear off meat forever....and murder his grandmother with no remorse. He also loves organic food and comments that it's better for the planet, like his Veganism. It's a bit of a...quirky thing that does nothing to lessen his utter lack of remorse in slaughtering everyone he meets, torturing people for info and selling heroin...

He shows zero remorse killing people on his own side and tells Henry briefly to 'make the right choice; when asking him to give up the heroin, but follows up by mentioning he'll kill Henry's loved ones in front of him and calmly comments "I take it by your silence you've made the wrong choice" before going "ah well."

Need I mention, btw, that van Damme is having a freaking blast in this role?

Conclusion?

A bit of a...quirkier version than normal. I think he may be our first organic-fruit eating vegan drug lord CM.

Xander... gonna assume that his feelings towards his duck are either a "that was mine" or a genuine but long gone feeling of kindness.

edited 29th May '17 10:05:39 PM by 43110

Yea to Xander.

Xander.

@Forenperser Well except for Garrett and Whitehall. They're still scum. That said, agreed on everyone from the season not counting, especially AIDA/Ophelia. Before and after her transformation.

Kind of pleased to say this, but to Sharptooth!

edited 29th May '17 10:17:32 PM by futuremoviewriter

for Xander, Murmuxmon, Dr. Gaia, and Sharptooth

Unsure on Azog given the arguments against him

edited 29th May '17 10:38:57 PM by G-Editor

Leaning towards a on Dr Gaia, but I'm not sure about Murmuxmon. The heinousness standard is surprisingly high here.

I'm also inclined to give a 'yes' to Xander, though he sounds hilariously stupid.

Xander. Gonna be an odd watch seeing van Damme play his first CM after seeing him play so many heroes (though he did play the villain in Expendables 2).

We don't see Azog attempt his "dwarf genocide". He's motivated by a grudge against Thorin's family, but motivations do not cause him to clear the heinous bar.

As to moral agency and Tolkein's letters, Word of God is explicitly something we don't allow to supersede what we see onscreen or read on page. It's even in the FAQ. Using that letter would be like using a cutscene or an interview with a director to satisfy a debate here, and we've always avoided that in the past. I know that courtesy of the way in which his posthumous works were published and his stature in the fantasy world Tolkein's private letters and rough drafts are often treated with reverence in the fandom, but we can't do for him what we haven't done for other authors in the past.

Great, I wake up and there's 5 new pages

Anyway:

• Warhammer 40k: I wonder if Erebus could count. He DID instigate the Horus Heresy.
• Murmuxmon, I think. Ditto Gaia.
• I'm leaning Goenitz, assuming he knew she'd wipe out her whole village,
• Xander, though I also echo 43110's question.
• I'm abstaining on Azog. When a majority of those 5 new pages are for one character...

edited 30th May '17 1:02:30 AM by ACW

A 'Yes' to Jean Claude Villain Damme......that was a bad one.

Meanwhile, I thought we could count Word of God when it came to clarifying otherwise ambiguous stuff?

Like, this somewhat reminds me of the discussion had for David from The Last of Us. Most tropers figured him a Keep, but some didn't think he was heinous enough or some such. It was brought up that he attempts to rape an underage girl, that being Ellie.

Problem was, not everyone SAW it as that. Some tropers stated that the scene was rather ambiguous and that it could be interpreted differently, and thus they didn't feel comfortable adding that to his rapsheet.

Cue....I THINK it was Lighty pointing out that, in an interview with the actors/developers, they stated that David was indeed trying to rape her, and that swayed opinions.

I KINDA feel like this is a somewhat similar instance. If a director came out and outright contradictsd something in the film, then I'd agree we shouldn't count that. But with something as wonky and pretty darn ambiguous as to how much agency orcs possess, I don't see an issue with using the author's thoughts on the subject as a basis.

But that's just me.

As an aside, I've got a buttload of Marvel candidates coming up, so stay tuned for those.

edited 29th May '17 11:40:04 PM by Ravok

Azog

Xander

I gotta say, as a huge LOTR and The Hobbit fan, I never considered Azong heinous enough, just a little more nasty orc. I was shocked when I saw him proposed and I was THIS CLOSE of giving him a very easy no vote. But Lighty's arguments won me over. Tentative yes to him.

And note one more thing about it. I felt exactly same way about Azog as A New Man. He never left any impact on me or stood out to me. However, I am willing to look past that and I think that is because I've seen so many, many nasty villains much worse from Azog that I am used to it by now. Azog might be heinous enough, but after participating in this thread for so long and seeing so many C Ms, I believe that a heinous villain with no redeeming qualities became a norm and many C Ms seem like standard villains now. As Lighty, pointed out it is not about "impact the villain left" but whether they hit the mark. Otherwise, I would never propose Malagant who barely left any impact on me.

And yes to Xander too.

edited 30th May '17 1:45:42 AM by emperors

I guess I can give Azog an though I also wonder if Smaug the big dragon counts too given that he was the reason the dwarfs had to start their quest in the first place while there is no Evedince that he was created by Saurons evil

No, absolutely not. He is been decided on and doesn't count. Azog is actually more heinous form him since both try to kill the people of town but Azog has additional more crimes.

Xander, Murmuxomon, Gaia and I'll abstain on Azog.

Alright. 30th May. TIME FOR ME TO SHINE!

What is the work?

Injustice 2 is the latest fighting game from Netherealm Studios and the suquel to Injustice: Goda Among Us. I real like it. The Story Mode easily beats out the Bv S and Suicide Squad movies in terms of being great popcorn superhero fun with a decent emotional heft.

So, Supes went nuts and became a tyrant, but the good guys beat him in the end by calling alternate universe versions of themselves, including a good Superman. Yay.

Regime!Superman’s locked up and all’s pretty good. Gorilla Grodd’s up some stuff with his Society, but nothing too rough. Except the Godzilla Threshold is gonna get pushed. Bad.

Who is the candidate?

Alright everyone, I got someone real out of left field here.

Hold your breaths. This might be very shocking.

My candidate

is Brainiac.

Yeah. Shocking. I know.

Anyway, for those unfamiliar, Brainiac is sociopathic alien who covets knowledge above all else. And he will take it though any means necessary.

I think he’s a cyborg. Maybe. That’s what the evidence I can gather suggests. The game doesn’t really delve into this version’s background too much, other than he comes from the planet Colu.

Whatevs, let’s get this done.

What has he done?

The game's Story Mode starts in a flashback on Kypton. Supergirl’s running away from Brainiac’s drones, or Betas, which are killing innocent civilians indiscriminately. She witnesses Brainiac’s Skull Ship stealing Argo City, digitising it for his “collection”, and we later learn he did the same to Kandor.

Also he destabilised Krypton’s core.

That’s right, another Brainiac that's related to Krypton's destruction. Smallville Brainiac would be proud.

So, Krypton blows up. Decades later, Brainiac comes to Earth, recruiting Grodd to assist, promising dominion over Earth. He is lying; he intends to destroy Earth.

Capturing Green Arrow and Black Canary because they beat up Grodd and he considers them “worthy of study”, he strangles Canary with his Combat Tentacles when she screams at him; he argues “resistance begets violence”, only stopping when Arrow promises they won’t resist. He exposits to and interrogates them: He wants Supes, an oversight from Krypton he wants to correct. And destroy Earth. When the heroes ask him why, he answers “I collect knowledge… like your metal trinkets, knowledge is more valuable when it is rare.”

Sending his Betas to attack, civilians are rounded up, stabbed with rope knives, scanned, vaporised, all that nasty stuff. At one point, he tries to strip Cyborg of his humanity. How mean.

So, Brainiac and the Society cripple Earth and he begins taking cities, such as Metropolis, Coast City and Atlantis. When taking Metropolis, Brainiac even wears a satisfied smirk.

Bats releases Supes to help fight Brains, but Supes apparently gets vaporised. Brains then threatens to blow up his Betas to ignite Earth’s atmosphere and wipe out all life unless they hand Supergirl over so he can research yellow sun radiation on Kryptonian cells. Bats doubts he’d keep his end of the bargain, which, considering what we’ve seen, seems likely.

Oh, and the Society abandons him since they now know he lied to them. Only Grodd stays loyal in the hopes of playing The Starscream in the years to come.

Brainiac sends Grodd to attack Black Adam and Aquaman with Green Arrow, Black Canary and Blue Beetle under his mind control and prepares his final attack. Batman and Supergirl manage to invade his ship and find Brainiac’s collection. At least dozens of cities are stored and SG can hear multiple langauages in addition to the Kryptonians’, suggesting just how many worlds Brains has destroyed and how many hundreds of billions lost their lives. In Scarecrow’s Arcade Ending, SC claims that Brainiac’s collection stores billions of species from millions of worlds. We later find out some cities get completely deleted, like Coast City, never to be restored. That’s just cold and I gotta say, I feel really bad for the Baseline. SG and Bats think on what they can do for the cities, if anything, but they are ambushed and captured, Supergirl taken away to be vivisected. And then, in a slightly hilarious moment, Brainiac expresses disappointment that Batman, who beat Supes, had failed so utterly to defeat him, and REALLY non chalantly leaves him to be killed by his Betas. It’s funny in context. Fortunately, Supes saves him. Regime!Supes is still a dick.

Turns out Firestorm and Swamp Thing were also brainwashed. They are quickly freed. As a final dick move, after Dr Fate is defeated (long story) Brainiac impales the poor guy for pretty much no reason. Brainiac gives some bullshit about the environment and chaos and Supes and Bats say they will overcome their problems because humanity and Earth always do when they should have just said “Fuck you, you massive hypocrite” and fight him. Bats gets knocked down, but Supes steps up. Brainiac boasts “you are only a Kryptonian, of which I have killed billions!” Supes wins, theorising the Justice League’s attacks on his Betas stretched out his neural processing. Speaking of, disconnecting him from the ship means the ship is going to crash, and Regime!Supes does one of his few heroic things by risking his life to hook himself up and guide the ship. SG gets released from her bonds thanks to the ship depowering as well.

Brains wakes up, horrified and livid at the theft of his ship. He gets blasted from behind by a weakened SG, with him swearing to punish her, but Bats uses a smoke bomb to mildly irritate him and finally manages to knock him down for good.

AND THAT’S THE END OF THE GAME NOTHING ELSE BAD HAPPENS THERE IS CERTAINLY NO DENOUMENT BETWEEN BATS AND SUPES WITH SUPES TRYING TO REINSTATE HIS REGIME NOPE ABSOLUTELY NOT

Freudian Excuse?

Dude, it’s Brainiac.

Mitigating Factors?

Dude, it’s Brainiac.

Heinous Standard?

The worst. No question. Billions of deaths at the least with a few more personal atrocities for good measure.

Darkseid’s DLC, but he’s not in the story mode. His ending in Arcade Mode may be Nightmare Fuel, but he doesn’t do enough bad to match up to Brainiac’s on screen crimes. Hell, Joker’s, Grodd’s and Scarecrow’s endings are more heinous than Darkseid’s!

Speaking of these two, Brainiac doesn’t like either Darkseid or Joker in the pre-battle character dialogue Netherealm is becoming known for. Brainiac values knowledge over power which Darkseid thinks is dumb since he think knowledge without power is worthless and Brainiac thinks Joker is a cancer and he declares he will never be a part of his collection, probably because he doesn’t like comedy. Or Chaotic Evil types that act with little logic. Obviously, neither of these are mitigating in the slightest.

And Joker still counts. Again, goes without saying.

GDV?

Nope, he has a very clear, condescending personality. He smiles with satisfaction when shrinking Metropolis, is totally dismissive of Bats in a really smug way, is indignant when Supes defies him and is angry, terrified and very arrogant when trying to take his ship back.

Conclusion

DUDE.

It’s Brainiac.

edited 30th May '17 2:44:43 AM by PolarPhantom

Brainac (Again)