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
Wild Child
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Fitzsimmons.
To Fitzsimmons
@ Ravok, hey, if you want to cover Hobgoblin from the Venom Factor novel, that's fine with me. I have read yet another 90s Marvel novel and have another character worth considering, who is not one of the usual suspects like the Red Skull, the Big Bad of the novel Hulk: What Savage Beast:
Who is the Maestro? What has he done?
This is an alternate timeline version of the original Maestro, who is a corrupt version of the Hulk from the future, who rules over a portion of humanity in a post nuclear war world. Like the original, this Maestro manages to build his own city state out of the ruins of NYC, giving it the charming name "Dystopia". He rules his realm like some barbarian king, killing anyone who opposes him and forcing any woman who catches his fancy to become part of his harem of sex slaves.
This Maestro is more successfully then the original, he kidnaps a freedom fighter named Skooter working for an elderly Rick Jones, using a device that forcibly scans minds to learn the location of Jones' rebel camp, then Maestro cuts off his legs and throws him out on to the streets. Maestro leads a raid on the rebel camp, killing every man, woman and child in the camp (Hulk later comes upon Maestro's handiwork and vomits in response). Maestro says he will spare Rick Jones if he begs for his life, Jones tells him to "get stuffed" and the Maestro performs taxidermy on him. Also Maestro beheads several of the rebel leaders, including Rick Jones grand daughter and shows the heads to Skooter, just be a dick.
After the massacre, Maestro gains possession of items Rick was hording, like Captain America's shield and a gem Dr. Strange once possessed called the Timeond, which lets someone go across time and space to other dimensions.
Maestro uses the Timeond to go to a different timeline, where Hulk is intelligent and Betty Ross pregnant with a child. Maestro changes back to Bruce Banner and kills a reclusive scientist named Amos Trotter, taking his pace. "Trotter" uses Dr. Leonard Samson to get into the contact with the Hulk and offers to cure Banner, which he does. But he had his own purposes for this, one to get close to Betty and the child.
Anyway through events that don't matter to this effort post, the cure is reversed and Banner becomes the Hulk again. "Trotter" goes to meet Hulk and Betty after the child is delivered (Hulk has to use a gamma beam to save the baby's life) and Betty recognizes him, so Trotter turns into the Maestro and steals the baby, named Brett and takes him to his own dimension.
With the help of Dr. Strange the Hulk pursues the Maestro and comes to his dimension, 20 years later. At this point, the Maestro has raised Brett to be as corrupt as he is. Hulk kidnaps Brett and tries to convice him to reject the Maestro.
Meanwhile Maestro has been gathering Hulks from various dimensions and plans to use them as his personal army, ironically naming them "the Hulkbusters". Maestro plans to travel back to the Hulk's timeline and ravage it, killing millions in the process.
Also when Hulk first arrived another groups of rebels helped him, so Maestro has one of his Hulkbusters kill everyone in that rebel encampment, adding another massacre to Maestro's body count.
Hulk goes to the old Gamma Base gets some of his equipment, to create a weapon that can depower the Maestro and his army. Maestro arrives and uses Cap's shield to block a blast from Hulk's weapon, then Maestro and his army defeat the Hulk.
Maestro intends to use Hulk as his "banner", keeping him chained up while his army travel through the "Crossroads of Space and Time" to get to Hulk's dimension. Brett has a change of heart and begs the Maestro to stop, saying they can just go home. This makes Maestro fly into a rage, with Maestro claiming Hulk has "ruined" Brett and now he intends to murder both Hulk and Brett. Hulk destroys the Timeond, which messes with the dimenion portal the Maestro is using. The Hulkbusters are lost in time and space, with only Hulk and Brett seeming remaining, Hulk holds on to Brett from a ledge on the Crossroads. However Maestro has grabbed onto Brett's leg and is trying to climb up Brett's body to attack the Hulk. Brett decides there is only one thing to do, he forces the Hulk to let go of him, causing himself and the Maestro to be lost in space and time forever, sacrificing his life to end the Maestro's reign of terror.
Is he heinious by the standards of the story?
This is an easy one, yes. Even though the Marvel novels can have a steep heinous curve, Maestro is one of the worse in this universe. He has done almost every vile thing you think of: rape, sex slavery, child murder, mind rape, random massacres of entire encampments of people who oppose or just annoy him somehow, an attempted genocide against the human race.
Really only really nasty villains like Modok 1.5 have a bigger attempted body count, but Maestro easily does enough to count.
Any Freudian Excuse or other redeeming factors?
This is where things get tricky.
The Maestro likes to claim he is this way because of the persecution he suffered as Hulk. Here is the problem with that, the Hulk suffered the same persecution (the military is hunting for the Hulk at the beginning of the novel) and the Hulk finds the Maestro totally repulsive.
Hulk and Brett have a long conversation about the Maestro and Hulk dismisses all of the Maestro's justifications as BS, saying yes there is precution in the past, but there is also kind and good people in the past who do not deserve to die and the Maestro thinks kindness and goodness are weaknesses.
Also Maestro is a Blood Knight and a Social Darwinist, who kills people because he enjoys it and thinks his superior strength gives him the right to kill and dominate others. Maestro attempts to use past persecution as a "good out of jail free card" and uses it to absolve himself of any moral responsibility, saying anything he does is acceptable and when that fails, he just says "screw it, I am stronger, so I have the right to do whatever I want to who ever I want".
Now going a bit further into Maestro's back story, when he steals Brett from Betty, he claims it is payback for her betraying him, she says she has never betrayed her, and he replies not yet. We are giving no context to Betty "betrayal", but given what happened to Rick Jones, it could be that Betty turned against him because he was becoming a megalomaniacal psychopath, I don't trust the Maestro to be objective here.
At one point the book speculates that maybe the radiation from the nuclear war changed Hulk, but frankly I don't buy it, that's one line vs. the rest of the book saying Maestro is pure evil and someone to to be reviled and the Maestro is clearly corrupt not insane. He can use justifications for his actions and pretended to be kindly old man for almost a year, Maestro has total agency, IMO.
Now a big thing is Maestro claims he kidnapped Brett because if he hadn't, the government would stolen Brett and turned Brett against him, leading Maestro killing Brett in battle. That's messed up, but when Brett is shocked by this, but Maestro says what was he supposed to do, lay down his life for another person, essentially saying he would never do that even if its for his own son.
Considering he tries to murder Brett at the end of the novel for defying him, I think he sees Brett as his possession and considers him worthless when Brett starts to think for himself, I don't think he cares about Brett as a person.
Final Verdict?
He may count, depends on whether you think his FE outweighs his actions and other motives. '
edited 2nd Sep '17 9:18:45 PM by Overlord
I'll yes the Maestro; it sounds like the narrative itself deconstructs his potential disqualifiers.
edited 2nd Sep '17 8:05:18 PM by HamburgerTime
I've talked with Overlord about this one. I say yes to the Maestro because I don't believe his excuse holds up in terms of his current actions and characterization.
Oh, and ACW? I'm going to be writing up Fitzsimmons. Ravok and I have both read the book and he's allowed me to take one off his workload. I can touch up Verminous Skumm if we want too... the opening sentence of his writeup is clunky and it doesn't touch on his more evil deeds (mocking a kid about AIDs is so silly and trivial compared to crimes like trying to activate nukes, murder entire cities with caustic acid rain, and destroy the world it scarcely bears mentioning even if it is most well-known crime).
edited 2nd Sep '17 8:50:53 PM by Scraggle
Scraggle: I will always associate Skumm with AIDS Kid's understatement of the century: "AIDS STINKS!" I love Captain Planet and the gold mine of Narm it provided.
Also, yes to Maestro. Kinda sad that Hulk always becomes a terrible person in these far-flung future stories: 616 Maestro, Old Man Logan Hulk, and now this version.
True, but I'm going to excise it from his writeup because lying about a teenager being AID positive for shits and giggles is pretty small-time to committing graphic mass murder and trying to destroy civilization. Even if no one wants me to rewrite Skumm, I'd rather we cut that portion of his writeup out because the only reason it bears mentioning compared to his other villainy is because it's a meme.
edited 2nd Sep '17 9:37:38 PM by Scraggle
Scraggle: Oh no, I wasn't protesting your rewrite at all! I was just noting what I found to be a hilarious line, and apologize for it sounding like that. Humor and wording things well are not my strong suit.
Seriously though, I'm all for a rewrite: from what I remember the guy was nasty and it doesn't do him justice.
Everything's cool, pal. Anyone else for Skumm?
It's been ages since I've seen Captain Planet but I think I recall reading somewhere that Skumm has the only onscreen murder in the show, deliberately overdosing somebody on a super-drug of his own design.
For the Maestro.
Okay my first time using this thread so forgive me if I don't quite get everything right.
So there's an online RPG game called DragonFable with one character I really think qualifies. Roirr who is both a Big Bad and a Villain Protagonist for one arc.
Who is Roirr? What has he done?
Roirr is a being said to be the First Weaver (a class that weave elemental spirits), specifically a Flesh Weaver. His main characterization is that he is an Immortality Seeker who has dedicated his centuries long lifespan to gaining Complete Immortality. Up until this point he has used his own dark magic to perform body surfing, switching out the current old body for a younger fresher one until it expires and so on. He also has a habit of extracting souls of others and devouring them as source of food.
We get officially introduced to him as he steals the body of Vaal, a previous villain in the game. However due to Vaal's power his soul does not get digested and he ends up Sharing a Body with Roirr.
The Saga then plays out from Roirr's perspective. He comes upon an area near a village and finds two male villagers. Roirr proceeds to kill one of them and extracts his heart to allow him to use dark magic to take on his appearance. The other villager manages to escape not knowing the fate of his friend. Shortly after this, Roirr summons Vaal's elemental spirit companion and devours her.
Later on, Roirr poses as his victim and finds his friend. Finding out it happens to be his victim's birthday, Roirr has his friend play a game with him, where they are to go around the village drawing symbols on the ground. In reality Roirr is setting up another dark magic spell which will allow him to liquefy and consume the entire village of people.
After this Roirr carries out the final part of his plan, going to the Capitol inhabited by the Magesterium to find a mystical object known as the "Mana Core". Once there he steals the body of a female Magesterium member and proceeds to slaughter all other members of the Magesterium. Then as the final living Magesterium member Roirr uses his authority to command the Magesterium's guardian creature known as the Shapeless, which harvests people and transports them to the Capitol. Except Roirr uses it to harvest innocent civilians so that he can devour their souls. After his hunger is satiated, Roirr proceeds to grab the Mana Core to fuse with it, transforming into a Physical God.
Having become aware of the commotion that Roirr had been causing, a SoulWeaver named Danyel had traveled over and attempts to fight the immortal Roirr, but is completely overwhelmed. In one final attempt to take him down, Danyel uses a Dangerous Forbidden Technique at the cost of his own life, to release all of the souls that Roirr had consumed and leave him as a living skeleton.
After this, the evil elemental spirit who had been accompanying Roirr since he was a child appears, casting a spell to send Roirr back-in-time to when he was a child. There Roirr had a Villainous Breakdown at failing to achieve immortality and is at death's door. He then meets his own father who is distraught over his son (Roirr) was terminally ill with an incurable disease. With some prompting from Vaal, Roirr gives his father a spell for dark magic that will cure his son's life at the cost of an entire village. Now at the very end of his life, Vaal submits Roirr to a spell to turn both of them into an elemental spirit via a Fusion Dance. They end up becoming the very elemental spirit who had been pushing the young Roirr down the path of darkness to begin with, essentially creating himself via a Stable Time Loop.
Is he heinous by the standards of the story?
Yes, he is easily one of (if not the most) horrible villain in the entire game. He's a soul-devouring Serial Killer who has spent several lifetimes accumulating a staggering bodycount. On top of his scale, soul stealing is quite a unique niche (with only one other villain performing it).
Even other villains are disgusted by his actions. Vaal, who is a pretty bad person already, had a You Monster! moment after Roirr devoured his soul ally.
Any Freudian Excuse or other redeeming factors?
He does technically have a Freudian Excuse, as the evil elemental spirit had been whispering in his ear for his entire life to guide him down the dark path. Except said spirit was revealed to be the future Roirr himself, so he had gone to great lengths to make himself the monster he is today.
He has no redeeming factors aside from feeling uncomfortable upon learning what the Magesterium uses the Shapeless monster for, but he has no problem using it to harvest people for himself to devour. He is fully aware that his actions are heinous and evil, admitting in his final moments of life that his soul is too dark and tainted that he couldn't Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence like most weavers.
Final Verdict? I say he counts. He is essentially the definition of everything horrible and awful rolled into one. But I'll leave the decision to you.
Edited by Snowy66 on Jul 1st 2023 at 11:41:53 AM
Easy yes to Roirr. Corrupting your own past self to make sure you stay evil is a crime I haven't seen much on this thread.
to Roirr.
Lizzid people!
Heh...great someone was able to find that moment of Skumm spreading rumors on that one boy for peing HIV positive for shits and giggles hilarious. Really, after re-watching Zarm's episodes, this was really the only reaction that I had on what I was watching: [1].
Roirr.
edited 2nd Sep '17 9:26:48 PM by AustinDR
As someone who has also played Dragon Fable, would you say the Mysterious Stranger, a.k.a. Sepulchure's master, might also count? While Sepulchure himself doesn't count for a variety of reasons, his master has the same omnicidal goals without any of the redeeming factors. Overall, his actions were far more heinous and destructive than what Roirr did, albeit the Mysterious Stranger was far more powerful.
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.
To Roirr.
@Lore Deluxe. I am not entirely sure about Mysterious Stranger. There's no doubt he's awful, but he does have some Affably Evil moments here and there. Also the fact in a way he's not as selfish as Roirr is, as his endgame is tailored to the benefit of the Plane of Darkness rather than his own wellbeing. Plus, MS's body count doesn't even come close to Roirr's since he was mainly an Orcus on His Throne prior to the Orb Saga finale.
edited 2nd Sep '17 9:48:42 PM by Snowy66
Any other potentials from this series? I think we have a few other Artix ones already (Vath and Krellenos, I think) but I've heard tons of villains are nasty here.
Drakath from AQ Worlds is pretty bad in that game, being far worse than his incarnations from Dragon Fable or Adventure Quest.
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.
IMO, Chaos Drakath is Played for Laughs too much to count as CM. Along with the fact he's a puppet to the real villain.
Another potential CM I can think of is Vordred from AQW.
edited 2nd Sep '17 10:21:34 PM by Snowy66
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I rather doubt it. Most of the more serious villains tend to have somewhat tragic aspects to their characterization, while the muahahaha EVIL types aren't played entirely seriously.
Vordred was Made of Evil, IIRC.
Okay, well we could vote on Drakath if you like. I feel like he has redeeming qualities and most of the evil he did was more petty than monstrous. The trope work page does state their "terribleness is played seriously at all times, evoking fear, revulsion and hatred from the other characters in the story."
Well Vordred was made in a lab. Aside from that Freudian Excuse everything he does is downright horrible.
edited 2nd Sep '17 11:08:31 PM by Snowy66
Current tally on Flavio Volpe:
: Myself, DDD, Mah Stache, Vey Melon, Reyn Time 250, Elefen Lied Fan 90, Harmonius Pussy, Overlord
![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_down_emoticon_3571.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
: Ambar, Tommy Fresh
It has been almost a dull day since anyone had anything to say about him. Is the voting over?
jjj
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]")
Fitzsimmons, judging by the EP. Considering that Moriarty teamed up with Holmes to stop him...
"I'll show you the Dark Side." CM actors and kills