Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

So Brainiac gets knocked out? That's it?

to him though. Is he in the prequel comics, or just the game proper?

As far as I can tell he hasn't appeared in the tie in comics. Not yet, anyway, and I almost doubt he will.

Xander. His vegan bit sounds odd though.

And Brainiac. Obviously.

Alright, cool, so he's just games (I'm asking because I requested Joker's entry gets copied to the comics page, since IIRC his nuking was in the prequel).

Murmuxmon, Dr. Gaia, and Xander.

After seeing both sides of the Azog debate, I'm honestly leaning

And Brainiac...again.

Murmuxmon, Gaia, and Xander.

to Xander and Brainiac.

to Azog.

to Injustice 2 Braniac... but it's hard to take him seriously from that because your effort posts are funny. Not bad funny, just the way you write them is really fun to read, for lack of a better term.. brains and supes

Anyway, I have a new potential candidate, from The Phoenix Files.

What's the Work?

The Phoenix Files is a six-book young adult series, focusing around a "backwards" town that's cut off from the rest of the world. This prompts the three Kid Hero protangoists, one being an Action Girl, to unravel a long winding conspiracy about the end of the world. The Big Bad is a man known as Noah Shackleton, and he has organised this set up town so he can... basically nuke everywhere else.

Who is Noah Shackleton and what does he do?

Noah Shackleton is a businessman, the head of the Shackleton company, which runs the town, which in turn is a conspiracy to keep people alive and destroy the outside world using a mysterious project called Tabitha... kind of like Damien Dahrk's plan. He does not properly appear in person until the second book, Contact, in which he makes his Establishing Character Moment by telling the main protagonist that he's going to track and murder his father. He uses the Tabitha to execute one of his friends. Then he injects supressors into the three friends, so he can track them 24/7.

The true nature of the Tabitha is horrifying. It's not your simple 'nuke everything' superweapon, oh no. Tabitha is a biological weapon and its purpose is to burns someone's skin off, completely and painfully He didn't go with a simple nuke, like he could've, he chose to do it this way, which is ... Fridge Horror when you really think about it . Burning the skin off of everyone in the outside world is a really brutal way of doing a genocide. And he doesn't have a motivation for doing this, either.

In one of the later books it's revealed that Shackleton has been sending the residents of the Town to a concentration camp in his building. He had sent the protagonist's family there too; it's unclear why exactly he does any of this stuff. He's just evil, plain and simple. And he's not your generic 'evil businessman'. He enjoys it, delivers a speech about enjoying it, and, to top it off, at the climax, he engages in a sort of hard to read fight with the main protagonist. (it is very violent). He's a psycho. He ultimately loses to the main protagonist, and dies, but not before they esentially deliver a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown to each other.

Redeeming or Mitigating Factors?

no

Verdict?

He has no Freudian Excuse. Shackleton is just an absolute bastard and does it For the Evulz. He might claim he does it for the good of the world, but he is known for Blatant Lies and everyone in universe sees through it.

This is my shortest writeup so far I'm pretty sure, but Noah Shackleton is still a vile villain. He personally doesn't get a lot of screentime (or pagetime I guess) but allows his actions to do the talking and his actions are horrible, made worse by the fact that it's all For the Evulz. One of the most extreme cases of Corrupt Corporate Executive I think I've seen... yeah he counts. He's really punchable.

edited 30th May '17 6:20:43 AM by MahStache

I'll vote to Xander, Brainiac, and Shackleton.

My problem with using Word of God in the case of Azog is that it isn't really that clear. In the Last Of Us discussion, one of the main points of contention was whether David was trying to rape Ellie or not. Word of God basically said "Yep". There is no clear-cut answer in this case, Tolkien eventually says they could be redeemed but gives no indication of how they could be. This is still a complicated issue and he never really found a satisfactory answer. Because of this, I don't feel comfortable using it to definitively state that orcs have moral agency.

edited 30th May '17 6:23:10 AM by TommyFresh

Ok Azog has 10 for, 7 against. Never expected him to be this close, let alone cause such a big debate on moral agency.

edited 30th May '17 6:29:47 AM by hopeshalllive

An orc could presumably become good the same way the Haradrim or Easterlings could.

This is Word of God to clarify something that is both ambiguous and implied in the text: how does one say that it's not in there when Frodo actually discusses the innate evil of orcs here?

And Tolkien's word here is an important thing: he died with his cosmology unfinished. His word and his letters matter enormously to what went in to the Silmarillion and the history and rules of Middle Earth. That's been rather established for decades.

What we see in the books? The Mordor orcs are largely unhappy slaves unhappy with working for Sauron. The Isengard Uruk-hai are proud of their service and martial prowess, and the Moria orcs just want to stay in their mines.

There's enough in the work to show that trolls and other evil creatures are capable of moral decisions, and even orcs who can be bargained with, reasoned with, develop friendships and bonds, choose their own service or backstab the ones they work with, and even have moral standards. With even hinting they're conditioned to see Elves as evil.

An inclination towards evil does not override moral agency. We'd have to cut every drow and chromatic dragon if that was was the case.

edited 30th May '17 6:38:13 AM by Lightysnake

Noah Shackleton.

Injustice Braniac.

I think it has more to do with the work in question than anything. Tolkien made a very deep and complex fantasy world and left many things ambiguous because he died before he could finish. His legendarium is many people's favorite fantasy setting and it can spark fierce debate, like what we've been seeing. I just gave my evidence based on what he published in his canon, published works.

edited 30th May '17 6:38:15 AM by LoreDeluxe

I was reading things many pages back, and I think that some of the Grimm candidates weren't added to the Monster.Grimm page after being passed? I'm not sure. I just did a quick look and the names don't seem to be appearing on that page.

Well, the canon works never once say that orcs are just evil without any hope of it because Morgoth made them.

As you say, Tolkien's cosmology is a complex thing and as he died with it unfinished, his personal word has been important. Otherwise, what does that letter contradict in the written word? Is it a contradiction or a resolution to a question the text raises but never answered to his satisfaction?

Based on The Tower of Cirith Ungol, I think the latter is clear. And another thing: we previously approved DIABLO, a demon born as a demon, and Lord Foul, whose nature is pure evil because demons in that setting are innately evil but capable of changing should they wish it, while Foul is capable of the same.

I don't see how Azog in the films is any different. Especially when we approved the demonic incarnation of terror and nightmares for much the same reason

edited 30th May '17 6:42:50 AM by Lightysnake

Wuz, I think it's just Zerstorer. He's been requested.

So Noah Shackleton wants to kill millions if not billions, in a painful manner, For the Evulz? Not the deepest character, but I see no reason he shouldn't count. him.

I'll go ahead and abstain on Azog, from what I remember of the Hobbit movie he didn't stick out to me but I'll leave it to people who know the lore.

and yeah that's exactly him... not very deep but he's very entertaining to read despite it and is rather popular in fan circles because of it.

edited 30th May '17 7:06:49 AM by MahStache

Ditto for Noah

I've said all I can say on Azog at this point, so I'll wait to see how the votes come in. Depending on the outcome, I feel like this will have a huge impact down the line on how we look at moral agency in candidates.

Azog.

Azog. That's all I'm saying because it is impossible to keep up with this conversation. All I know is I haven't read the books, and from what I saw in The Hobbit movies, nothing he did seemed to scream Complete Monster to me.

I don't think this is different than a lot of cases we've discussed in the past.

I don't mind legit downvotes but that isn't the criteria. That's NOT a response to the effortpost or the actual deeds.

edited 30th May '17 6:58:49 AM by Lightysnake

Tyk did gave his reasons for a downvote. I myself prefer when people give reasons and Tyk did Lighty.

That's why I'm abstaining.